Phantom Changes
by Phantom Ice
Summary: A.U. The portal accident did more than turn Danny half ghost, it wasn't satisfied with half. Yet, Sam, Tucker, and Danny aren't ready to accept death, and try to hide Danny's ghost among the living. It doesn't go so well for anyone, but there are no other options, it's not like you can get a second chance at life... right?
1. Game Over--or Not?

**_Danny P.O.V_**

I was holding the white and black jumpsuit awkwardly, and Sam, who was on a bit of a camera craze, even if she would never admit it, had just snapped a picture.

"Smile!" She ordered as she clicked the shutter. Immediately the picture spouted out of the bottom, she grabbed it and pasted it into her scrapbook... where did she even get a Polaroid camera? I shook my head, dazed by the abnormally bright flash.

"Okay, I showed you the portal, can we get out of here now? My parents could be back here any minute." I looked around the lab to make sure they hadn't appeared out of thin air. They were right upstairs, and how many times had they warned me about messing around their inventions? Especially the electricity based ones. Sam still didn't look convinced, and Tucker was messing around with stray wires, looking like he was in heaven. "Besides... They say it doesn't work anyway" I added in an attempt to convince them to leave. Something about the eerie scientific quietness of the basement/lab creeped me out. It reminded me of a scene from some sort of sci-fi horror film, with the glowing green beakers, odd collections of sparking wires and scrap metal, and most of all, the cold metal examination table fitted with cuffs that looked suspiciously like they were designed to restrain people. Sure I knew it was for 'humanoid ghosts, sweetie,' provided they even existed, but still... wasn't being humanoid enough to keep it from being morally right to strap you to an examination table? **(1)**

"Oh, come on, Danny, a Ghost Portal?" Sam snapped me out of my thoughts as she walked up to the entrance of the not-quite-a-portal. She peered inside, squinting into the darkness. "You have to check it out!" She goaded, the look on her face was of pure excitement and awe. It was contagious. Maybe she was right... How dangerous could it be anyway?...and Sam would be impressed... wait? Where did that come from? I walked up next to her and followed her gaze. It was impossible to see the end of the narrow mechanical tunnel, and so it was easy to imagine that if you followed it you could end up somewhere else... somewhere new and different... somewhere where things weren't so black and white in people's eyes... another side to the same story.

"You know what? You're right. Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool, things exist on the other side of that portal?" I relented, slipping the hazmat over my red and white t-shirt and slightly baggy jeans. I zipped up the front and stood in front of the portal determined to do this. Tucker looked at the portal suspiciously and Sam smiled at me, suddenly her smile turned into a frown. That brought me down a notch... maybe she was deciding that this wasn't a good idea after all...

"Hang on," she sighed in annoyance, like someone had walked past her in a fluffy pink dress. She walked up to me and placed her hand near the top of my chest, frowning. Why in the world was she frowning at my chest? I looked down just in time to see her pull something off with a Velcro sound. " You can't go walking around with that on your chest." She held up the large sticker of my Dad's face, pointing at it in disgust. How in the world did that get on my jumpsuit? I smiled at her sheepishly as I turned back to the portal and took a single step in. Eerie blue tinted lights floated down from the ceiling revealing spots of wires and bolts. Another step and my foot clinked a few wires, by my third step I couldn't see anything in front of me anymore. I looked up to the ceiling where the blue lights had been coming from and braced my hand against the wall so that I wouldn't trip over anything in the darkness. I could just register hearing a mechanical clicking noise and then a sound like rushing water swept over me, I was just able to brace myself before I was hit by the forceful wave of green. Green, everything was green. My body felt like it was being drowned, electrified, covered in maple syrup, compacted like a cube, and stretched like taffy all at once. A horrible burning sensation spread from my center as the swirls of green clouded my vision. I couldn't move, I could only give in. A piercing scream swirled around me and I wished it would stop, it sounded horrible, like someone dying... Wait, was that me? In a startling change the burning heat at my center suddenly froze over, and there was this awful ripping sensation, like my heart itself was being violently torn from my chest. I screamed an octave louder, no one should ever feel this degree of pain. Then, as suddenly as it started, everything stopped. There was a numbing cold in my chest, and I couldn't feel anything except the sensation as I flew backwards onto the floor in front of the swirling green vortex.

"Danny!" I heard two voices shout in the background of the ringing of my ears. I was out cold before I even hit the ground.

_**(1)**__Anyone else notice how Danny always looks nervous in the lab, even in the scenes from before he became a ghost? This is just my own little take on why._

**_Tucker P.O.V_**

"You know what? You're right. Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool, things exist on the other side of that portal?" I knew that was the start of a disaster. The way Danny had slyly looked at Sam before he said it assured me that he was ignoring the little warning bells in his head that told him this couldn't end anyway but badly in favor of another more pleasant sensation. Sam stepped back as Danny pulled on the HAZMAT suit, and I left the plethora of half-finished weaponry and impossible experiments to stand next to her. I knew I should have told Danny that this was ridiculous. I eyed a single stray spark as it lazily followed the curvature of the portal entrance. His parents had specifically told us the day we first walked into the lab nine years ago that we were never under any circumstances to mess with any of their experiments, no matter how harmless they looked, and that black hole in the wall looked anything but harmless. It wasn't exactly a recent warning, but still. I should have stopped him, but I was curious to, and I certainly didn't want to be the one to go in. Danny stood in front of the portal with a determined look on his face. I snickered at the picture of his fathers face staring up at us from his suit. Sam apparently was just as impressed by it as I was.

"Hang on," the look on Danny's face as Sam frowned down at his chest was priceless, and I considered taking a picture of his tomato red face on my .s new built in camera. Sam stepped back, a small flush on her cheeks, quickly covering it up by holding up the sticker.

"You can't go walking around with that on your chest."

Danny smiled back at her. Lovebirds. Sometimes the romantic tension between them made it hard to stand next to them. everyone sees it, even them. Now if only they would admit it and release the rest of us from the torture of watching them pretend to be nothing more than friends...

Danny took a step into the portal, another step and he was swallowed by the darkness. If I squinted I could just barely make out his silhouette. I heard as he took another step, and there was an odd sound like someone pressing a button on a keyboard.

"What was..." Sam started. She was interrupted by the bright green light that burst toward us. We dove out of the way as the thick green substance burst out of the hole, sizzling with electricity wherever it touched the lab walls.

"Danny!" Sam yelled as an ear piercing scream filled the air. It was not a scream of surprise, or even fear. It was a scream of pain. Then the glowing green settled in the portal and a body was thrown backwards into the air. This time I joined Sam in her shout of

"Danny!" As the form flew past us. We quickly scrambled up from the floor and ran over to what we had assumed to be Danny. Now, I wasn't so sure. The thing lying in front of us was glowing! It's hair, looking like thousands of volts of electricity had coursed through it (although, that was probably very close to the truth), was a silvery white. It's cloths were almost the same as Danny's had been upon entering the portal, but not quite. The large white area had darkened to a deep black, and the black collar and cuffs were a bright silver. It's own glow, along with that of the portal, sent odd shadows across its figure.

"D-d-danny?" Sam whispered falling to her knees in front of the thing. No, that couldn't be Danny, for that to be Danny he would have to be... Well, the only thing that could explain the thing in front of me was a ghost, after all, the portal had been designed to tear a hole into the next dimension, right? But Danny couldn't be a ghost, to be a ghost, he would have to be dead, it certainly looked a lot like Danny, though...

Sam looked up at me, hand on the chest of the thing that may or may not be my best friend. "Tucker... there's no heartbeat."

**_Sam's P.O.V_**

No, no, no. This could not be happening. Tucker and I had just dove out of the way of the volcano of green sludge (ectoplasm?) that had burst towards us. That wasn't what alarmed me though. No it was the ear piercing scream that alarmed me.

"Danny!" I shouted, but I was drowned out by the watery sound of the glowing sludge, and the sound coming from Danny. It was horrible, it was torturous, the kind of scream goths would pay a hand and a foot to be able to hear... if it wasn't coming from their best friend. I searched franticly for a plug or a switch or a battery, something to release my friend from this pain. Then there was a change, the scream morphed into something more, not a scream, but... a wail, there was no other way to describe it. This was not a sound anything living was supposed to make. No! I would not think that. Danny had to be alive... he had to be. So I was relieved, and then terrified, when the portal stopped spitting out green, and spit out something that looked uncomfortably like a human body.

"Danny!" Tucker and I both scrambled off the floor to where the body, no not the body, to where Danny, had landed. Except, it didn't look like Danny, not anymore. Not only where the colors on his HAZMAT suit inverted, but so was his hair, glowing, I did a double take, yes, glowing, a silvery white. I feel to my knees and put my hand on his chest. Please be alive, please be alive... but no amount of pleading would change the truth. No matter how I pressed, there was no mistaking the lack of a heartbeat or the freezing cold that engulfed the hand that touched him. Tucker stood behind me, looking stunned. Tucker knew stuff about technology, the portal was technology! He could fix Danny!

"Tucker...," I said excitedly, but I suddenly lost hope halfway through. Tucker could fix tech, not death. "There's no heartbeat," I sullenly informed him, and we both looked down at the body of our best friend... And it moved! It was such a small twitch at first that I thought I was imagining it, but then there was a groan, and his eyes fluttered. Tucker and I leaned over him, a little afraid to touch his glowing exterior, even to help him up.

"S-sam? Tucker?" The voice asked. It was undeniably Danny's voice, but it buckled and echoed as if coming from somewhere far away. Then the eyes opened all the way, and I gasped. They were green, a neon radioactive toxic glowing green... but underneath that, was undeniable Danny.

"Guys?" Danny, it was obvious that was who it was, asked, staring at me and then Tucker. "Guys, what's wrong? You're starting to freak me out." He didn't know? Couldn't he feel it? What did it feel like to be... whatever heartbeatless humanoid thing he had become? I guess it would be hard to identify a feeling no one has ever had...

"Danny... You may want to check this out, man," Tucker awkwardly pointed Danny to the mirror against the wall. Danny wobbly stood up, and I noticed that as he did so, his feet seemed to hover above the ground for just a moment longer than should be possible. I watched Danny's face as he looked around. He looked like he could tell something was different, but didn't know that it was him. Then he caught his reflection in the mirror and gasped. He took shaky steps towards it, bracing his hands against the table. He brought one hand to his face, touching the skin. He lightly shook his head and closed his eyes, but when he opened them they were the same glowing green and his hair was the same snow white.

Tucker came up behind Danny. "It's not so bad, man, white hair is retro..." He tried to put his hand on Danny's shoulder to comfort him, and the most unexplainable thing happened, his hand never stopped. We all watched as Tucker's hand fell as easily through Danny as if he wasn't there. A moment of silence as we all looked at Tucker's hand stuck right through Danny's stomach. Oh God no.

"What's happened to me?" Danny whispered, I walked up to the other side of him as Tucker quickly pulled his hand out of Danny, but the damage was done. It was time to speak up,

"I-I think you're a... a ghost," I whispered. And Danny shook his head vigorously.

"No. To be a ghost I would have to be... I would have to be..."

"Dead," I quietly finished for him. And it was all my fault.


	2. This is Really, Really, Really Bad

_A/N: Okay, I'm having trouble deciding on format, so I'm going to ask you guys. (Well, the few of you that there are anyway) ;-)  
Would you prefer that I make every chapter three P.O.V.s (Danny, Tucker, and Sam), or make every chapter one P.O.V.? Making them three P.O.V.s would make the chapters longer (obviously), but it would take longer to update. Making them one P.O.V would make them shorter, but they would be updated quicker, so it's up to you. Please on comment which you would prefer, for now I'll just be experimenting between the two._

_okay, now to the chapter..._

* * *

**_Danny P.O.V_**

I-I couldn't be dead! There were so many things I wanted to do! I wanted to graduate high school! I wanted to go to college! I wanted to become an astronaut! I wanted to... I looked at Sam. No! I couldn't be dead! I was just fourteen! I shook my head again,

"N-no, I can't be dead! I can't!" No, no, no. I couldn't take the looks of pity and fear that rested on Sam and Tucker's faces.

"Kids!?" A shout echoed down the stairs. Mom! No, she couldn't see me like this. On the increasingly likely chance that I was... dead. I also had to remember that not only was I dead, but I was a ghost. I was a ghost and my parents were ghost hunters... Steps sounded down the stairs, the small delicate ones of my mother, and the large booming ones of my father.

"They can't see me like this!" I fiercely whispered, pressing myself against the wall. I needed to hide. Sam and Tucker's, who were staring right at me, eyes suddenly grew large, but I didn't have time to think about it as my parents bonded down the steps. There was a gasp. Oh no! They saw me, I could imagine the horrible experiments, myself strapped to that examination table, because that's what I was now, a humanoid ghost, the exact thing they made that table to restrain and torture...

"Madds! The portal! It's working!" shouted Dad, "guess it just had a late startup!" He smiled proudly at the monster of a machine. Mom, on the other hand looked around suspiciously.

"Sam, Tucker, we heard a scream, is everyone alright?" Her tone, while motherly and worried, was also threatening, as if she was saying 'everyone better be alright because I told you guys the dangers of messing with these things'. It was then I knew the trace of motherly would vanish if she ever found out what I had become, proof of the existence of her life long passion. She looked at Sam and back to Tucker, I shrank closer to the wall, surprised my glowing eyes, hair, or body hadn't been zoned in upon yet. "Where is Danny?" She asked them. This was it, any second she would look up and see me crushed against the wall.

"Umm.. We don't know. We came down to look for Danny..." Sam volunteered, I didn't understand why she bothered with such an easily disproven lie. Then it happened. My mom looked up directly at where I was standing... And then looked away. Wait, what? Mom ran over to dad who was messing with the portals doors.

"Danny?" Sam whispered roughly, "if you're there, follow us," what did she mean, if I was here? of course I was here... then I looked down at the body that wasn't there. I was invisible! I was invisible... a ghost power. No no no. Thoroughly shaken I followed Sam and Tucker as they climbed up the stairs, into the family room, and up to my room. I was the last one in and I closed the door behind me. They looked startled at the doors apparent movement of its own free will.

"Danny?" Sam whispered.

"Yes?" I answered from behind her. She and Tucker jumped up.

"Can- can you make yourself visible again?" Asked Tucker.

"I-I don't know," I truthfully answered, for once in my life fully concentrating on being visible. Suddenly Sam and Tucker gasped, so I guess I succeeded.

"Oh, Danny," I was surprised to see tears pooling in Sam's eyes. "I'm so sorry, this is all my fault!" She wept. "If I hadn't dared you to go in to that stupid portal-"

"Stop," I interrupted. I didn't understand it, but I couldn't let her get hurt. I was dead, I had to come to terms with that, and blaming someone wasn't going to bring me back... God, I was dead. I didn't think that was a thought that it would be easy to get accustomed to a coldness coiled around my figure. "I... I'm... Dead. I'm dead. I'm dead, and you blaming yourself isn't going to... to bring me back. God. I'm dead, dead, I am dead, God..." I gradually broke off into a whisper, forgetting I was trying to comfort anyone as the facts me him. I was dead. No one would ever find my body, it had probably been disintegrated, or thrown into a foreign plane of existence. I was a ghost. My parents were ghost hunters. If I disappeared my parents would never know what happened. If I stayed my parents would try to destroy or dissect me as punishment for dying. What was I supposed to do now? There had to be more to death, right? Was this it? Stuck walking the world of the living, avoiding my parents, with nothing else to do... forever? Forever... The concept seemed so strange. I would go on like this forever. Fourteen forever... My hands clenched at my side. What the heck was I supposed to do!?

"Danny? Are- are you okay?" Sam stepped up to me.

"No! Sam, I am not okay! I am dead! I'm dead and a ghost and my parents are ghost hunters and I'm stuck here, I'm only fourteen! I know people die young everyday, but I am not one of those people! I can't be dead at fourteen! I don't know what to do! I shouldn't be here anymore, why am I still here?!" I burst out. Sam and Tucker stared at me wide eyed, looking down at my feet... where they floated three feet of the ground. "What am I going to do?" I pleaded with them much more quietly, glaring at the space that separated my feet from the ground as if if only I could get rid of it everything would go back to normal. Sam stepped forward, grabbed my forever silver and gloved hand, and pulled me back down to earth.

"What are we going to do?"

**_Tucker P.O.V._**

We were in deep. The thing that had suddenly become Danny was yelling about life and death and was slowly floating off the ground, its/his new neon green eyes flashing in anger and confusion. Sam was feeling incredibly guilty, but me, I couldn't help but stare at the space between his feet and ground. Something about it just made it so... real. I had been juggling between believing this thing couldn't possibly be my best friend, to just seeing him as Danny with white hair. But now the thing was talking to us just like Danny, and yet floating feet off the ground as if it were totally natural. This is Danny. This is a ghost. Ghosts are dead. Danny is a ghost. Danny is dead. This is very very bad. We killed Danny! Sure, Sam told him to go into the portal, and Danny agreed, but I should have stopped this! Sam was mesmerized by anything different, and Danny would do anything for Sam, but me? I was the only person in that basement with the potential to think straight! I had no excuse for letting him go into that death trap! Sam was pulling Danny back towards the ground. The pain evident in their eyes.

"What are we going to do?" Sam corrected, straining the 'we'. She was right, of course. This was our problem. This was a problem, a problem that needed solving, and if there was one thing Tucker Foley was good at, it was solving problems. I spoke up.

"Okay, so what we need to do is find out why Danny is still here," Danny and Sam stared at me cluelessly.

"I was checking out the ghost weapons," Danny flinched, "sorry, anyway your dad was blathering on about ghosts, and from what I actually payed attention to, ghosts have obsessions. Things they have to do that sort of drive them to still exist, so we have to figure out what it is you feel you need to do, and help you do it," I explained. Danny looked terrified, but nodded his head with Sam. Neither of us mentioned the obvious follow up question. What then? Say we did manage to find Danny's 'obsession', and even manage to 'cut his ties to this world' or whatever it's called, what then? How was that helpful? Sam and I would be left without our best friend, and who even knew what would happen to Danny? But we didn't know what else we could possibly do, so we went with it.

"What about my parents?" Danny asked instead. "They'll notice if I never show up again, and they'll call the police, and this whole place will be swarmed with officers and detectives, we won't have time to figure it out," his voice was shaking in a way I would usually laugh at, but the guy was... dead so I would give him a break. I honestly didn't have an answer, we couldn't very well tell his ghost hunter parents that he was a ghost...

"Why do they have to know?" Sam spoke up, "you talk like you always did, you a act like you always have, why don't we just pretend you are as you've always been?" Sam continued. Hand on her chin and staring speculatively at Danny. "We just act like nothing's happened, and they'll never know the difference." She finished. There was an obvious flaw in her plan. Danny and I shared a look.

"Ya, Sam, but he doesn't look like he always has," I pointed out, "sure he may act and talk the same, but even Danny's parents, no offense man," Danny held his hands up in a universal 'none-taken-because-I-completely-agree-with-you' gesture,"would notice if their son came home one day with snow white hair and glowing green eyes,". Sam didn't look phased at all. She walked over to Danny and pulled a black cylinder out of hammer space. She pushed the button on top and a black cloud puffed out of it.

"Gothic hair spray, darker than the night," she smiled up at the smokey substance. We were beginning to see where this was going.

"And my eyes?" Danny asked, looking a bit excited.

"Easy. contacts," Sam replied.

"There are a few other problems we need to take care of to," I said, "I'll tell your parents that we're all staying over at Sam's house for the night. I'll bring the contacts and Sam can get some normal cloths from your closet," I announced. This plan was stupid and idiotic, and we were bound to get caught eventually, how long could you hide being... dead? But it was all we had, so we clung to it.

* * *

_A/N_

_What do you think? To fast or calm? I honestly have no idea what I would think if my best friend (or secret crush *cough, cough*) suddenly and violently died and became a ghost right before my eyes, suprisingly I've never been faced with that situation before. So if you think anything was to off, please comment. If you think everything was perfect, comment anyway... Really just comment._


	3. Ulterior Motives

**_Sam P.O.V_**

This was all my fault, and so I was going to do my darn best to fix it. I knew my plan had flaws, but _he_ deserved a life and I was going to make sure he got as close to one as was now possible. After I had grabbed handfuls of _his_ signature red-and-white t-shirts, blue jeans, and a pair of red sneakers from his closet, I quickly slipped out of the house, doing my best to avoid Mrs. and Mr. Fenton, parents whose son I just killed, very thankful that Jazz (who was much more perceptive) wasn't home.

Stuffing the large bundles of clothing into my dark purple spider backpack I practically ran over to my house. I knew that as soon as Tucker and... _he_, got there they would see the secret I had kept for so long, but at this point it didn't even matter. By now I knew they liked me for me, and not my money. Well, at least Tucker does, and _D-Danny_ did... no! I would not think about him in the past tense! He is still here! '_But for how long_' that pessimistic voice in my head spoke up. Tucker's plan was the only line of action we had, yet I couldn't help but wish he hadn't mentioned it. What was going to happen if we did get Danny to 'move on'? We would never see him again. We would never see him again and I would have to come to terms with the fact that I had committed virtual manslaughter... and that my... my best friend, was the victim. No, I was sure I did not want Danny to ever fulfill his obsession as long as I was alive, with my plan he would never need to anyway, he could just pretend to be alive. No one would ever know. What was so great about 'moving on' anyway?**(1)**.

I threw open the door to my house, not even giving my parents, who were in the living room sipping tea (I know, right?), a second glance. I ran up to my room, dumped the stuff that wouldn't fit in my backpack onto my bed, unlocked and opened the window, and ran back to the front door to wait for Tucker and... my other best friend. I knew, since my parents saw them, especially _him_, as a bad influence, I would have to sneak them around back and up the fire escape. As I waited I thought about the fact that my parents thought that the kid I killed was a bad influence on me, the irony. If only _Danny's_ parents were more like mine, if only they had realized what a horrible influence I was on their son, then maybe this wouldn't have happened... but no, I couldn't blame others, this was completely one hundred percent my fault. _He_ would still be alive if it weren't for me.

"Sam!" I hadn't noticed Tucker as he ran towards me until he was about five feet away. His army green backpack was slung over his shoulder,it was filled to the brim, and I could see some chrome where it spilled out. I briefly wondered what his addition, or additions, to my plan were.

"Tucker!" I was happy he had made it so quickly, now we were only missing—

"Okay, let's go," another voice interrupted my thoughts, and then, right before my eyes, a green eyed white haired boy rose straight out of the ground!

"Danny..." Tucker was to stunned to say much else. I tried to shake off the similar feeling engulfing me at seeing my best friend rise out of solid Earth as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Umm, okay, we're... we're all here. Follow me," I ordered, avoiding staring at the third member of our group where he floated, yes floated, behind me. I led them both around to the back of the house.

"My parents would freak if they found out you were here, so I left my window open and we'll climb into my room up the fire escape," I explained to them, pointing at the aforementioned window. Tucker sighed, tightening the backpack around his shoulder. Then _he_ spoke.

"No problem," I thought I saw the smallest hint of a shadow of a smile appear on his face as he grabbed Tucker and I by the collars and lifted off the ground with as much ease as one might pick up a pencil. Tucker and I just stared at the back of Danny's head in shock. He flew diagonally from the ground straight to my window, ignoring it as if it were nothing but a guideline. He flew into the room so that his righthand side (the side holding Tucker) went through the open window normally, but his lefthand side (the one holding me) phased straight threw the wall! Chills ran down my spine and for a second all I could see was reddish brown, and then I was standing on the plum colored carpet of my room. Danny floating feet off the ground, neon green eyes literally glowing with excitement. I quickly looked away, only to meet Tucker doing the same thing. Our eyes met each others. I was glad to see in his strange aqua eyes that we both realized it. Danny was much more comfortable about using ghost powers, powers of the dead, than he should be, and that was something to worry about.

**_Tucker P.O.V_**

Just like we planned I ran down first and told the elder Fentons about our plan (the one to stay at Sam's for the night, not the one to disguise the fact that their son was a ghost by dying his now white hair black and getting blue contacts to cover his glowing green eyes among other things), and they were perfectly okay with it (again, the first plan, not the second one), to distracted by the now functioning ghost portal to wonder why Danny didn't ask them himself. I ran out of the house, Danny presumably still invisibly on my tail, stopped by my house and a store to grab a few more things we would need, and headed straight for Sam's. About halfway there I realized Danny might not have been following me as I thought, because when I tried to talk to him there was no answer. I just convinced myself that he either was to stunned or depressed to talk, or he had decided to go ahead to Sam's while I ran my errands, I was a little worried that he hadn't told me he was leaving... but I suppose he thinks he needs time to figure this out on his own.

I arrived a few minutes later, and called out to Sam when she didn't notice me, even though I was literally five feet away, and was about to ask if Danny had arrived yet, when something flew out of the ground in front of us! It shook it's head as if trying to rid it of thought, and then lightly smiled at us as if it was caught doing something it shouldn't have. I was stunned, in the space of an hour, Danny had gone to being a nervous reck, to just using his... ghostiness, as if it were completely natural! He just came out of the freakin' ground!

"Danny..." I ran out of things to respond to that little revelation with, luckily Sam had it covered.

"Umm, okay, we're... we're all here. Follow me," she ordered, leading us to the back of her house. Danny didn't walk behind us, he floated. I wonder if he noticed the way Sam was avoiding looking at him? Probably feeling guilty, I would have to remind her that this was just as much my fault, and a tiny bit Danny's, as it was her's.

"My parents would freak if they found out you were here," I wasn't sure if she was talking about me, Danny, both of us, or Danny's ghost, "so I left my window open and we'll climb into my room up the fire escape," she pointed at an open window on the third story, and despite the circumstances I couldn't help sighing. Great, physical labor. These hands were not made for climbing ladders. To my surprise, Danny did not seem to share my aversion to physical activity as he always had before.

"No problem," a small smile appeared and then disappeared as he grabbed Sam and I by the collars and jumped straight off the ground. Against the small wind and odd dangling feeling under my feet, I still managed to look up to the back of Danny's snowy white hair in surprise. I squinted, trying to read his mind, however, people aren't as easy to read as computer monitors, and I came back with nothing. My best friend was taking all this in stride, had it really only taken so long for him to accept his own... death? Was he resigned to the fact that he would never not be able to fly or become intangible ever again? Ever again, the thought scared me. Would Danny really exist forever? Never aging, never dying... only because he was already... already dead? Secretly this is why I was so intent on this plan to find his obsession and moving him on, it was because I didn't like not being able to understand things, and the concept of death was not something I think I could ever come to understand, and so, my natural reaction? Get rid of the problem. It was just how I worked, if I couldn't exactly solve it, I came as close as possible and got rid of it.

I know how horrible it sounds, I'm trying to get rid of my best friend by sending him into what could possibly be a literal infinite oblivion just because I don't understand him? But no, I swear that's not exactly it, I'll never forget Danny, he will always be my best friend, and so I realized that my ego isn't the only thing at stake. Looking at him in his room before, I realized his sanity was also up for grabs. Danny had never been exactly... stable, psychologically that is. Now I'm not saying he's on the verge of going insane or harming someone or anything like that, just that he has never been very confident or sure of himself. Because of this low self image, he would sometimes sink into bouts of self-loathing, not extreme enough to be considered depression or anything, but it was still pretty hard to see him like that. Not that it was obvious, either. He hid these brief periods of extremely uncertainty very well, and unless he snapped at the person who caused them (who was occasionally himself) most people would never even notice them.

However, Danny was my best friend since forever, and I could see when he was lost or at the edge of losing it. Thankfully, that had only happened a handful of times, once when his parents forgot his birthday for what must have been the third time in a row, twice when Dash went much to far (that had been really bad... and bloody), and once when Sam's parents had reached the last of his mental straws with the degrading insults and comments they sent his way anytime they so much as caught a glance of him. This whole, 'being a ghost' thing had been one of those situations, the worst one yet. No matter what was on 'the other side' I had to help him get there before he became a nervous wreck, nothing but a shadow of himself, that I had been sure of.

'Had been' being the operative term here, because now, looking up at Danny... I hated to admit it, but he radiated a confidence that I had never seen in him before, and that threw a wrench in my plans. What if I was wrong and Danny really could deal with this for... eternity? Then what? Do I change my plan to better benefit this new personality, or do I continue with the same plan just to stay in my comfort zone? I needed to know where this newfound confidence came from. Maybe it was just an act? Yes! It was all an act, he was still just as much as a reck as before! He needed to 'cross over', that was best for him. That's what was best for him, right? That's what I tried to convince myself, but I just didn't know anymore.

Danny flew us through the window (or literally _through_ the wall, in Sam's case), and set us down on the floor of Sam's room. I only took a second to register that the candles melting on the T.V. we're a serious fire hazard before I turned back to the problem at hand. I stared at Danny, naturally floating above the ground as if gravity was optional, his eyes literally glowing in something akin to excitement. I didn't know what to think anymore as I turned my head to see if Sam had the answers. She didn't, her eyes held all the shock and worry mine did... and was that a hint of betrayal? I couldn't think of that long, because then Danny spoke, and by the look on Sam's face, we both suddenly heard something we had been missing before. Around his words was a subtle echo, as if half of him was speaking from a far off place, as if he wasn't completely here

* * *

**_Sam P.O.V_**

From there things only got worse as Tucker and I suddenly noticed the echoing quality of Danny's words, but not even that compared to the things revealed to us by the story he told us, and I had to wonder a thought that hadn't even crossed my mind before. Was this really Danny?

* * *

_**A/N**__: Oh, Sam! Why do doubt our poor Danny? Oh, right, cuz that's how I wrote it...  
Well, next chapter is Danny's little adventure of confidence, the one that worries Sam so much, expect it in about week._

_**(1)**__ I know Sam was being extremely selfish in this little rant, and that's because that's what I see her as. Don't get me wrong, I love Sam and her whole rebel outlook, but it's not hard to see that in stressful situations she can become just a bit self centered. For example, in PP when Danny decided to get rid of his powers, she became so distant and despondent. Instead of seeing how much happier Danny was living a normal life at first (he only became upset after everyone started complaining about his loss of powers) she was all upset that he was 'just a normal teenager'. She obviously didn't completely understand all the stress Danny went through, not that she doesn't try. I actually think that's what makes Sam such a good character, she has depth and flaws. The thing that actually really annoyed me was that as soon as Danny got rid of his powers it was like she didn't even feel anything towards him anymore, I know this is a little unrelated but I can't help but feel like it made her seem like she only even liked him because of his powers, it wasn't like he couldn't still be 'different and an individual' without them... Wow, this is a really long rant, sorry if you're still reading, this is just a small detail in the show that I obviously feel very strongly about. *smiles sheepishly*... sorry 'bout that, but seriously, am I the only one who sees it that way?_

_**Something actually kind of important:**__ 'kay, in other news I've decided (with the help of you guys) to do three P.O.V.s for chapter, and that means you can expect an update every one to two weeks. Please keep me to that! If you don't see an update bother me about it until it's there! I am the kind of person who won't finish anything without a little nudging, so be as persistent as possible! That said I realize this chapter was only two P.O.V.s, that is because Danny's P.O.V will be very long, and I wanted to make it it's own chapter. After that, you can expect the three P.O.V. chapter thing. _

_Okay, so...review! Now. I must know what you think!_


	4. Creation of a Hero?

**_A/N:_** _So, Danny might seem a bit OoC here, but I don't think it's really that much, when writing Danny, I just want everyone to remember I'm writing him as Phantom. When Danny is Phantom he grows this weird self-confidence, recklessness, and general freedom that he never shows as Danny Fenton, so now that he is only Phantom, his personality will change from the self-conscious scrawny kid to the 'who cares' kick butt superhero most of the time. This change came about gradually in the show, but now that he is completely dead, I think confidence in his powers would come much faster. This is also why he has such good control over his powers in this story only hours after getting them, while in the show it took months for him to do basic things._

_**Me**: _*Shifting though reviews*

_**Sam**: _*Walks up and looks over my shoulder*_ Hey, that ones pretty cool... *Sees review from **pale-blue1**, turns red* I know she did not just compare me to Paulina!  
_

_**Danny & Tucker**: _*grab Sam's arms_* Woah, calm down Sam! she didn't mean it!_

_**Danny**: Who in the world compared Sam to Paulina and expected to live!?_

_**Me**: _*shrugs shoulders noncommittally*

_**Sam**: She compared __me__ to Paulina! *_Eyes turn into slits_* Must...Have...Revenge! _*Blue scales appear*

_**Tucker**: Umm, dude, you did take back Dora's necklace after borrowing it last week, right?_

_**Danny**: Ummmmm, well, you see, about that..._

_**Me & Tucker**: DANNY!_

_**Sam**: Rawr! _*Starts destroying things*

_**Me**: Dear concerned reader, we seem to be having some technical difficulties, please just read the chapter while we sort this out *Shouting and explosions in background* Oh, and **pale-blue1**, might I suggest getting very very far away very quickly... _WAIT FOR ME GUYS!*revs chainsaw and pulls down mask* AAAAH!

_That was what happened after Sam read **pale-blue1**'s response to my last chapter's little rant. Hope you liked it **pale-blue1**! (Don't worry, you won't have to move away, Danny and Tucker almost have Sam under control... _No guys! The giant dragon, not the video game stand! No Danny, we can not just 'let this one go!'_... Ya, excuse me for a moment, thanks... _Sam! Put Paulina and Starr down right now!)

_**P.S**__. This chapter contains a very Minor OC who may show up briefly in a later chapter and even more minor OC who won't ever come up again (thief)_

* * *

**_Danny P.O.V._**

I saw the looks they gave me as I stood lightly on my bedroom's blue tile floors. Sam had turned around and was shifting through my closet, and Tucker had turned around, heading towards the door to tell my parents we were staying at Sam's. But I still saw the look, right before they turned, that look of pity. That look of guilt and sorrow, and regret. That look of mourning. They looked at me like I was already gone, and I wanted to grab their shoulders and shake sense into them. Yell at them that I was still here, and that I was still the same Danny I had always been, but I couldn't, because suddenly I wasn't so sure. I was dead, could I ever really be the same? I also didn't miss the fact that Tucker didn't even give me a task, was I already so far gone in his mind that he forgot to give me a job in a plan that centered around me? And Sam... I didn't miss the fact that whenever she would happen to catch my eye, she would quickly look away, like she didn't want to see what was there. I wished she would look, then she would see that it's still me. Still Danny. I sighed at her back, she didn't turn. I walked back to the door, and lightly followed Tucker down the stairs to the main floor. He smiled at me, but it was forced. I allowed the same feeling as before in the lab to wash over me, I didn't want to be seen anymore. 'Good idea' Tucker mumbled, as he continued down. We split at the bottom, he headed towards the lab, and I towards the front door. I knew I should have told him I was going, but I didn't feel like talking. I had to figure this out by myself. Outside the air was crisp, March 3, **_(1) _**the beginning of Spring, the day I would remember forever as the day of my death. Forever... God, I didn't want forever. I didn't want to out-exist everybody I knew and cared about. What kind of existence would it be once they were gone? I would be all alone, even when they... died, they would be all grown up, their ghosts would be grown ups with nothing in common with my forever fourteen year old self. That was a problem! I suddenly realized that I would be alone long before Sam or Tucker joined me (if they even became ghosts). Every year I will drift farther and farther away as they get older and I don't. If somehow we get past this whole... me being a ghost problem, and we can again act as totally normal friends (which is a pretty big 'IF'), I still won't get older, physically and probably not mentally either. The time will come when they no longer want to watch movies and hang out at arcades all day, and I still will. They'll turn sixteen and start driving, and that won't be much of a problem, but how about twenty one? This made me realize the bigger flaw in Sam' half of the plan, a flaw so large we must have all been in extreme denial not to notice it. The plan was only a temporary fix. I could only pretend to be alive for as long as I can pass off my scrawny fourteen year old body as whatever age I'm trying to be, and that is not very old at all. Fifteen? Maybe sixteen? Very early seventeen at the most. What then? I will have to admit to being a– a ghost, eventually. This act can't go on forever. Was I the only one who realized this? And they called me clueless!...or did Tucker and Sam see it to? Why wouldn't they point it out? Then I remembered Tucker's half of the plan, finding out my 'obsession' and 'moving me on'. Was this them setting the deadline? I had to 'cross over' before I got to old to look like a fourteen year old? I didn't want to. I didn't want to leave everything I knew to something I didn't know the first thing about... That was it then, I didn't want to exist as-is forever, but I didn't want to have to change either. I wanted to live again, and that was never going to happen. I had my chance, and I threw it away into a swirling vortex of green sludge. So... I had to make the most of what I did have. It wasn't all bad, right? I mean, I practically have superpowers! At much higher price than anyone should ever have to pay... But no, no more depressing thoughts. I can walk through walls, disappear, and fly! If Sam wasn't so devastated, she would say it made me unique.

I took in the shadowy street around me, by this time, I was utterly, totally, and completely... lost, and in more ways than one. I had walked forward completely emerged in my thoughts, and I had lost track of where I was going, after all, Tucker and I had only barely ever even gone to Sam's house, she lived farther from the school than any of us, so she met me at me at my door in the morning (Tucker lived closest), and in the afternoon we headed towards the Nasty Burger or the arcade, maybe the movies. The few times we've been to Sam's, we didn't even go in, it was really just in passing. Basically, what I'm saying is I wasn't paying attention to where I was going, and barely knew where I was going even if I had been. I was very very lost. I turned around a few times to see if I could find a familiar landmark. Amity Park wasn't that large, and I could usually find something familiar, but not this time. I was surrounded by tall brick red buildings with no space in between them. Somewhere near the docks, maybe, but I wasn't sure. **_(2) _**A few people were walking by, and I thought about asking them, before I realized that that wasn't an option for several related reasons. First: I was invisible, and the road was much to open to turn visible without freaking people out. Two: I was glowing, my eyes were a bright neon green, a color that should be biologically impossible, even ignoring the fact that they were glowing, and that was a pretty big thing to ignore. Three: even ignoring all that, I didn't exactly look normal, a fourteen year old boy wearing a strange jumpsuit with white hair? Not exactly an everyday sight. Four: basically all the problems combined- I was a ghost. Wait! I was a ghost! I was no longer bound by the rules of gravity or physics or any of those other subjects I always knew were pointless! Ha! I stopped walking, now I just have to figure out how to... Woah! By the time I had finished the thought I was already twenty feet in the air! I leaned forward and was zooming through the air! It was as easy and natural as walking! Perhaps I should have felt worried about how natural using the powers of the dead was, as if I hadn't just gotten them less than an hour ago, but I was to exited! I had always dreamed of flying! Of soaring above everything, and this was a dream come to life. I would never become an astronaut now... but I did have the next best thing, the power of flight! I laughed as I flipped and summersaulted through the air. The sky was cool and wet, and birds would scatter out of my way, staring at me like I was crazy for flying. Well, they were going to have to learn to share their territory, Danny Fenton had taken to the sky!... No, that was a lie, Danny Fenton had not done anything, Danny Fenton would not do anything ever again, Danny Fenton was dead, and, for some reason, the name already seemed foreign in my ears. I wasn't him anymore, like I had originally wanted to believe, I was something else, something different, yet the same, somthing surreal...

I looked around, and even though I was zooming past, I could see everything in perfect detail. I admired my new hawk-eyed vision, I could see every detail of the ground and the sky from twenty feet up and going who knows how fast! I had been right about being near the docks, and from up here I could now see the ostentatious ops center of Fenton Works, from there it was just a left and...

"Aaaaaaaahhha!" The scream startled me so much I almost fell straight out of the sky. I guess I wasn't as good as I thought. I was worried, I realized I had unconsciously turned visible, had someone spotted me?! No, I was to high up to be picked up by living eyes... then what–

"Hmp," there was a small whimper and the sound of air being forcefully pushed out of someone's mouth. Carefully hovering I took in the streets below me. I was a little closer to the main town, but the buildings were still huge red brick, although they were separated by the smallest alleyways. It was in one of those narrow alleys that I found the source of the noise.

Pushed against one of the walls was a petite girl around my age with long pin-straight black hair wearing a bright yellow backpack. Her face was scraping against the wall and I could make out every detail of her terrified expression. Behind her, hand to the girl's neck, was a tall man with longish brown hair wearing a brown sweater and holding a knife to the girls back.

"Don't make another sound," I heard the man whisper into her ear. If this was any other situation I would have taken time to admire my bat-like hearing, I should have been much to far away to be able to hear such a low whisper, but this was not the time for that. This... It was horrible. A deep awful feeling rushed through my body to the point that I almost fell the rest of the way out of the sky. This had to be stopped, I felt like if this wasn't stopped I would just break down. It wasn't acceptable, it had to be stopped, I was the only one around to stop it. Without another thought I was diving straight down into the alley hands extending down, and an odd wispy feel came over my feet so that I couldn't feel them anymore. Tears started flowing down the girls eyes, and I was filled with a rage I couldn't even explain as I flawlessly entered the narrow alley and, as soon as my hand even barely brushed the girls shoulders I turned us both intangible (who knew I could do that?) and we fell straight threw the ground with nothing more than a small surprised gasp on her part. I moved a bit to the side, and we ended up in a small basement-like space in the neighboring building. I was very surprised when we came through the wall to see that the girl in my arms was unconscious. I hoped with all my might it was a result of fear or surprise, and not of being forced through a solid surface. What if living humans weren't supposed to go through things? What if I hurt her! Then she twitched a little, and I decided that, before I began to panic, I would take care of the problem above my head. Gently lying the girl on the concrete floor, I invisibly zoomed back up through the ceiling (or floor depending on how you look at it) and back into the alleyway, a growling sneer vibrating in my throat. Standing there was the _man_ (if you could describe him as that) just as we left him. He was staring at the brown brick wall, blinking as if that would somehow make his victim appear and he could continue in on his way. I drifted (obviously still invisible) right in front of him. I hovered eye level with his hateful glare. His brown eyes were empty. The monster. Intangible I drifted threw him so that I was facing him from behind, and he shivered. First two hours as a ghost and I've already given someone chills. I leaned in close to his ear.

"Why?" I whispered quietly, my voice echoing not only from the small alleyway, but from some place deep inside me.

"Who's there?!" He demanded to know, spinning around, and bumping his shoulder on the wall in the process. He swished his knife back and forth over what he though was empty air and what I knew to be the general area where my chest was located. I wasn't scared. Could ghosts not feel fear? But no, I was terrified of what my parents would do if they found out, so ghosts could feel fear. Then what was it? Was it I unconsciously knew what could and couldn't hurt me, and a knife simply wouldn't do the trick? You would think the part of me that remembered being human would flinch away from it. Perhaps I simply didn't have that instinctual fear of death? Yes, there would be no reason for a ghost to fear death, since we are already dead. So, no fear of death, but still stuck with all those human insecurities... great. The man was still yelling at air.

"I-I know you're there! Come out!" Still not the slightest trace of fear in me. He, on the other hand, was stating to tremble. I decided to comply with his demand.

"Why did you want to hurt her?" I asked, genuinely curious, as I slowly drifted into the visible spectrum,

"What the fu–" I quickly darted my hand out to cover his mouth, turning tangible in the process.

"Language," I scolded. He backed up against the wall in fear, his eyes darting between my silvery hair, hovering feet, and neon eyes. The knife shifted in his grip and he took another swipe at me. With reflexes that I most certainly never had in life, I grabbed his wrist with my other hand right before the knife slashed into my side, and he dropped it in surprise.

"Why?!" I asked again more forcefully, moving the hand over his mouth to his neck. I had to know!

"Get away from me, y-you freak!" He shouted, flailing his arms. My strength must have increased as well because I was only using one hand, and he wasn't making any headway. I was done with this monster, I thought of phasing him halfway through the wall like in movies, but quickly realized what was more likely to happen if I did that was his body getting cut in half. Despite my opinion of him I didn't feel comfortable with that at all. I was mulling over what to do with him, and so I didn't notice when his resistance became extremely more aggressive, and then died down. I did notice when he suddenly collapsed. At first I panicked, I didn't want to seriously injure anyone, but when I floated down to check his pulse, it was steady and even. Well, this actually made my job a little easier. I phased us through the floor and across to the basement with the girl in it, placing him in a corner and, just in case he woke up, I phased the ends of his pants into the wall. He could still escape, but he would have to ditch his pants in the process.

I floated over to the girl who was just starting to sit up and shake her head. Then I did something really stupid.

"Are you okay?" I gently whispered. Her pastel pink eyes **_(3) _**snapped open, landing on my glowing figure. She screamed and quickly started scrambling away on the floor till she was backed up against the wall.

"Stay away! Get away from me you- you–" she broke off, in a cry when she hit the back corner. She curled up and held her hands up in front of her face for protection.

I gently placed my feet on the floor in an attempt to make her more comfortable. I held my hands out in a universal 'I-come-in-peace' gesture and took a half step towards her.

"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you, everything's okay," I knew my cold echoey voice couldn't possible sound that convincing, but the girl looked up anyway. Her scared eyes started at my chest and slowly worked their way down to my glowing silver boots and back up till they met my toxic green eyes. She slowly relaxed and looked around the basement, then pointed to the man knocked out in the corner.

"That's the man from the alley?" she asked quietly, I nodded yes. "Did you..." I nodded yes again, "Is he, is he d-d–"

"No," I interrupted. I did not need her to get the wrong idea about me.

"Thank you," her voice became stronger as she slowly stood up off the floor. "How did you take him out? How did we get here? Who are you?" She looked over me again, "and why are you glowing?"

I just stood there awkwardly, "I'm stronger than I look." What was I supposed to say? I was a ghost? Ya, that couldn't possibly backfire on me. She gave me a doubtful look. "Look, I'll answer your questions on the way to the police station, okay?" I walked over to the still unconscious man and dragged him over by the back of his shirt. Then I offered my hand to the girl. She stared at the darkening bruise of a handprint on the mans neck.

"How..." She started, but the look on my face must have convinced her to just go with it. She took my hand and I jumped off the floor. She screamed as I rocketed straight towards the solid brick wall, angled upward. By the time she opened her eyes we were soaring above the city. She started to hyperventilate.

"Calm down!" I shouted out above the wind. She looked up at my smiling face, and relaxed. I pulled her up to brace her against my side so that we could hear each other better, luckily she was a small girl so I was able to shield her from the wind.

"Wh-what are you!?" she stuttered. Ouch, cold.

"What are you?" I laughed back, for some reason flying made me feel so much better, much more free, to the point that I didn't even mind being called an 'it'.

"I'm human, but I'm not flying!" She shouted back, beginning to panic. I looped towards a black and white building and speed towards the ground, stoping right before impact. We gently touched down.

"I'm..." I thought about my previous thoughts about my name. I didn't really have one anymore if that held true, but everything needs a name... I don't know where it came from, but suddenly I had it as easily and obvious as if it had been whispered in my ear, I was almost sure it had been..."Phantom, I am Phantom... and you are welcome," I said, dropping the man onto the concrete sidewalk and smiling at the stunned girl.

"T-thank you," she answered in surprise, I fell straight threw the solid ground, waving as I went, "wait–" she shouted, but I was already underground making my way to Sam's. Wait until Sam and Tucker found out about this! Somehow I knew it was the start of something big.

* * *

**_(1) _**_The air date was April 3, right? And in the first episode they said that the 'accident' was a month ago, right? So that would place it sometime around March 3, right? Please correct any wrong information, or tell me if I'm right if you know, please._

_**(2) **__think place where they fought Nocturne._

_**(3) **__Ya, pink eyes, think a little lighter than color of Paulina's shirt. I figured I could make the eye color anything I wanted really, since in the DP universe basically no one has normal brown eyes, and a few characters have purple or unnatural aqua colors (Jazz, Maddie, Sam, Tucker, Dash, shall I go on?), so I decided that this girl happens to have pink eyes for no specific reason other than I wanted her to. Anyone have a problem with this? No? Good._

_Now, Sam has something to say._

_**Sam**: Do I have to?_

_**Me**: Yes!_

_**Sam**: *sigh* dear **pale-blue1**, I am being forced to apologize for my murderous rampage against you under threat of having **Mango Bat** tell my parents about Danny helping me break into the school and spray paint all of Paulina's stuff black, therefore getting me grounded and having them reinstate their restraining order against Danny and forcing me into something horrific and pink._

_**Me**: There was absolutely no apology in that statement._

_**Sam**: Your point?_

_**Me**: *Sigh* Nevermind. Sorry, **pale-blue1** I tried._


	5. Disguising Disaster

_**A/N**: Finally! I hit a really weird block near the end of this chapter, and I got hit with another bunny (my new story 'Who I Am') and then I couldn't find a good place to end it, which is why Sam's pov is so long, but here it is, my longest chapter yet! Enjoy._

* * *

_**Danny P.O.V.**_

I zoomed through solid ground, occasionally peaking up to make sure I was going the right way. I felt so great, so energized, I have never felt better in my life... or, um, existence I guess. Wow, I was dead. For a moment there I almost forgot the problem, when I saved that girl it just felt so... natural, so me. I was finding it hard to think of not having these powers. This was wrong, I had died all of maybe three hours ago, yet I couldn't bring myself to care. That girl was okay because I wasn't, surely that means something? Someone was possibly alive now because I was dead, a life for a life, right? And who knows what else I could do, it didn't have to stop at her, I could save more lives, dozens of lives in return for mine? That was definitely a fair trade. _Plus, there are other perks,_ I laughed as I zoomed through the solid ground, feeling the white power that flowed around me as naturally as walking or breathing had once been. Weak, shy, scrawny, loser Danny Fenton had never felt this way. He never felt this kind of power, I doubted anyone alive had ever felt this sort of raw power, he never felt he could do something, that he could be someone, but Danny Fenton was dead and gone, that was the harsh truth of it and I think I can accept that, in his place was me, Phantom. A strong confident being ready to take whatever the world could dish out, and that felt really, really good. My death was something that had to happen for me to realize what I could be. This plan of Sam's was unnatural and wrong, and I wasn't ready for Tucker's plan yet. I wasn't ready to move on, I knew that now, it's why I became a ghost in the first place. I had things to do and people to save, I only hoped my friends could accept that. We couldn't pretend I was alive, because I wasn't, and Sam and Tucker can't be burdened with death yet, it wasn't their time, it was mine. Was that fair? No. Was it true? Yes. Was it right? The living me, or even the me of a few hours ago, would have screamed no, but the new ghost me knew deep down in his core (where did that word come from?), that the answer was a definite resounding yes. I was meant to die, it was supposed to happen and it wasn't something for me to mourn about. That was wrong, the dead shouldn't have to mourn themselves, they needed others to mourn for them. I wouldn't get that with Sam's plan.

"Sam!"

"Tucker!" I heard from above me, it sounded like a greeting, good I wasn't late.

"Okay, let's go," I suggested rising out of the ground to greet my friends. I needed to tell them about my decision, and in my hyper rush I forgot that they were still scared and nervous about my powers. Still in strong denial, and me co ing straight out of the ground certainly wasn't helping that. We just stood there in awkward silence as I smiled in apology, hand coming to the back of my neck, and then dropping down when I realized what I was doing.

"Danny..." Tucker trailed off, not really knowing what to say. I took notice of all the stuff spilling out of his backpack, hopefully he wouldn't be upset when I told him it was all for nothing. Finally, Sam broke the silence,

"Umm, okay, we're..." She glanced at me with sad violet eyes before quickly looking away, "we're all here. Follow me." I didn't fail to notice that her eyes refused to meet mine. Her orbs of violet flickered around my boots and gloves and even my face, but never met my pleading eyes. She was more freaked out than she let on. Was she mad at me for being so comfortable? Did she not want me to accept death? I needed her to understand that I needed to accept it, that I had accepted it. Maybe it was because she saw me as nothing but dead? Nothing but a ghost, a shadow of who I once was, and she didn't know how to tell me? That would almost be better, easier if she saw me as dead, then it would be okay that I accepted death, right? I just needed her to understand! I floated along behind her trying to catch her eye, I saw her glance at the empty space beneath my feet, and knew floating wasn't helping anything, but I didn't feel comfortable on the ground. It seemed more like I guideline to how high I should be floating than something to actually use. I guess that's my ghost senses at play, but just because I knew what was causing it didn't mean I could just stop it.

"My parents would freak if they found out you were here, so I left my window open and we'll climb into my room up the fire escape," Sam explained to us once we were outback. It was expected really, her parents distaste towards me and Tucker, but especially me, was so obvious the few times I met them that not even I could stay oblivious to it. _What would they think of me if they knew what I was now? _I chuckled to myself at the idea even though I knew I should be saddened or even horrified by the thought.

Tucker, ever the lazy one, groaned in protest of climbing all the way up to the third floor on a rusty old fire escape, okay, so maybe that wasn't just laziness. I knew that yesterday the thought would have gained the same reaction from me, but today...

"No problem," I laughed, this was the perfect opportunity to show them the benefits of being a ghost, change their minds a bit. Before they could react I grabbed Tucker's collar, then Sam's, and threw myself farther into the air. It didn't hold the same feelings it did when I was alive, the pushing and pulling of gravity, it was like... well, I can't even describe it, there was nothing I experienced in life that equals that feeling. Floating! That's it, it was like, when you're sitting at the bottom of a pool without weights, and you can't help but start floating upwards, that was the closest I could compare it to, but water still lacked that wonderful feeling of freedom that accompanied taking to the air.

I was surprised to not hear a single yelp or sound from my two best friends, you would think being suddenly introduced to a world without gravity would cause some sort of reaction. Whatever, they were probably just stunned. As we came up to the wall,I saw the open window and snickered. It seemed so... pointless. Why would it need to be open when I could go through it either way? However, in order to keep Sam and Tucker at least slightly in their comfort zone, I roughly aimed for the window, half of me went through the window, and the other half went _through_ the wall. Placing Sam and Tucker on the ground facing me, I continued to hover in front of the open window. They were having some sort of silent conversation and I didn't want to interrupt, but when I saw worry and, was that fear? I had to cut in.

"Guys?" Their heads snapped up in alarm, "you know there really isn't anything to worry about," this only seemed to make things worse, because their eyes suddenly meet each other again, and they seemed more worried than before. Maybe I should just get straight to the point. "I..." why did this seem so much harder now that I was here? I took a deep breath and quickly puffed/coughed it out, _note to self, not only do I not need to breath, but it's actually pretty annoying and uncomfortably warm, hmm, weird that I didn't even notice I wasn't breathing before..._, it was a small distraction. "I don't think this is a good idea," I blustered out. They just stared at me in shock."'Kay, here's the thing, I got lost on my way here 'cuz I was thinking about everything that happened, and at first I was really upset and stuff, and I wasn't thinking about it and I somehow ended up near the docks, which is really weird now that I think about it because it's, like, in the completely opposite direction, but that's not the point, because then I was lost and couldn't ask for directions or anything 'cuz I was glowing and I was, well, you know, but then I realized that that meant I could probably have a better view if I could figure out how to, well... fly, and then I was in the air and there was this scream and this girl and thug in an alley and I just got so mad, I don't even understand it but before I could think I was down there, and I pulled her away and it just felt so good, so me, so real and I know that I'm a ghost, and I really shouldn't try to fit in with people, it's just against nature, but I don't want to move on yet either because I'm not ready, and I need to save–,"_**(1) **_I didn't need to breath, probably didn't need to eat or sleep either, and I was incredibly nervous, so I could have literally gone on forever, luckily Sam was there and managed to come out of her stupor.

"Danny!" She interrupted. I promptly shut up. "Danny," she whispered this time, and I sighed, "What the heck _**(2) **_are you saying!?" she suddenly yelled, throwing me off. I tumbled a bit in the air at her sudden loudness, but quickly caught my balance.

"You used your ghost superpowers to save a girl from a thug in the street?" Tucker burst out. I don't know how he managed to understand me, but I guess that's why he's my best friend (1 out of only 2, but still). I nodded mutely.

"Y-y-you... you, d-did what! W-with what!" Sam went pale. Uh-oh.

"No, Sam, you don't understand I–"

"No, Danny, you don't understand! Why would you do that!"

"It was the right thing–"

"Fine, it was the right thing, I get that, but even ignoring that, you could have gotten hurt, or someone could have recognized you, I mean, you look exactly the same! It's not that hard to see!"

"I-I just had to do it, I felt like I would be in real pain if I didn't..." I trailed off and Sam took a deep breath.

"Fine, I hate to admit it, but you're right, you couldn't just let it go, but lets focus on the other part of your statement," she seemed to calm down, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. "What is wrong with the plan, and why in the world do you not want to go through with it?"

"Ya, dude, just because you want to save people doesn't mean you can't still be our same Danny Fenton, plus, it's probably not very healthy to not try to move on..."

"Tucker, how in the world can something not be healthy for me, I'm already dead," I pointed out laughing, and Tucker couldn't help but chuckle. Sam still looked livid.

"So, what, you want to go around being some sort of superhero now!?" She was getting angry, time to defuse the situation. Did I mention I'm not really that good at that?

"When life gives you lemons make lemonade?" I shrugged.

"You can't make lemonade with dead lemons, Danny!" She shouted, well, that stung a bit! Who does she think she is, I'm the one that's dead!

"Sam–"

"Just hear me out, Danny. What are you doing? Just giving up on life, that's what. What would your family think? What are we even supposed to say to them, 'oh, sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, Danny won't be coming home tonight because he died this morning!? I don't think that's going to cut it!" Sam became exasperated.

"Ya, man, I'm with Sam on this one, there is nothing wrong with saving people. That's pretty cool, and superpowers? Awesome. But you don't have to give up living normally just 'cuz of it, you can do both," Tucker cut in. I thought about it for a moment. They were right, I couldn't just leave my family, what was I thinking? Leaving Sam and Tucker to deal with that mess! And Jazz, Jazz was obsessed with keeping me safe and out of trouble, she would blame herself, I couldn't let that happen! _**(3)**_

"You guys are right, I can't do that to my family," _or you_, I added mentally, "let's... let's just move on with the plan," _for now_,"... who has the hairspray?"

* * *

_**(1) **Wow, all of last chapter in just fifty words... well, now I feel like that was a waste of time..._

_**(2) **Yes, she said heck, and not anything else at all...*ahem*_

_**(3)** Does anyone else think Danny is being a bit to perceptive here? He's not called clueless one for nothing, but I can't seem to get that part of his personality down..._

* * *

_**Tucker P.O.V.**_

I sighed, in relief. Not that I didn't think using his powers to fight crime wasn't incredibly awesome, but imagine telling his parents he was dead? At this point, that just wasn't an option. At least now I was less worried about him being confident about his powers, no real harm could come out of that, and he was just so... Danny. It was easy to see my best friend under that glowing aura, although his echoey voice still needed to be taken care of...

"Okay then! Let's get to work!" Sam smiled in relief and stomped off towards the bathroom. Danny and I looked at each other and shrugged, chasing behind her.

•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

Disguising Danny was much harder than any of us thought it would be. The first problem was his skin. He had always had pale skin, we often joked about his apparent inability to get a tan, but this Danny had developed an obvious tan... at the end of winter.

"I don't get it! Arn't ghosts supposed to be pale?" Danny was sitting on a chair in front of Sam's bathroom mirror, the counter in front littered with unused bottles and sprays. Sam was standing in front of him, clearly frustrated while studying his reflection in the mirror. Danny shrugged.

"I guess they would look however they did when they died," he answered.

"And in what world where you ever tan!?" Sam pointed out, very plainly leaving out the 'when you died' part. His answer didn't make much sense to me either, he wasn't tan at that point, why would he be tan now?

"Guy's, you do realize I was electrocuted to death, right?" Sam and I promptly shut up, "Wherever my body is, if it wasn't disintegrated into oblivion, it is definitely charged black, probably beyond recognition, I just happened to die before it could go that far, this isn't a tan, it's the beginning of being fried alive," he spit it out in clear anger, although at us or what had happened I wasn't sure. I was sure that his words shut both me and Sam up immediately. We hadn't really thought about how he died in that portal, just that he did. I hadn't thought about the fact that this wasn't really his body, just a recreation. It was... disturbing, to say the least, to know that, physically at least, Danny didn't really exist anymore. Danny's scowl left his face as he looked at the wide horrified faces of Sam and I. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

"Look, guys, I'm sorry. Let's just forget about it. We can't really do anything about my skin, and let's face it, no one pays enough attention to me to notice if I just got a slight tan in the middle of winter. We're betting on the fact my parents won't notice I'm dead, so that says something about how much attention they pay to me, and no one at school looks at me long enough to do anything but stuff me into a locker or beat me up, and Jazz is to busy worrying about her future, protecting my psyche, and belonging to a family of freaks to notice something so small. I don't think it's anything to worry about."

Danny had been acting this way since we convinced him to go through with our plan, strangely clear and un-clueless. It was sorta depressing. Sam just sighed and shook her head.

"Fine, lets move on to your hair," Sam's smile sent a shiver down my spine as she pulled out her black hairspray and hit the nozzle. A black cloud covered Danny's head and when it dissolved away, Sam and I smiled. Danny looked much more like the Danny we knew, his eyes were closed and I could imagine they were sky blue instead of toxic green, and his hair, although it wasn't perfect, and upon close inspection some of the hairs looked eerily grey, it was enough to make me finally physically see Danny under all that floating, glowing, and HAZMAT. Danny opened his eyes and took in his hair in the mirror, bringing a hand up to stroke it. Sam slapped his hand away.

"What are you trying to do? Rub it off? At least give it time to dry!" She laughed, her good mood suddenly returned. Danny smiled in response, lowering his hand and laughing along.

"I guess not, so what now?" He smiled.

Maybe, just maybe, this would all work out I thought to myself, and then we ran into the next problem...

* * *

_**Sam P.O.V.**_

I smiled at Danny's dark hair, it wasn't the raven black it once was, but it would work just fine, as sad as it had been Danny had been right when he reminded us how much people actually notice him, I had just been overreacting about his... charred (I shivered at the word) skin.

"I guess not, what now?" Danny replied with a small grin. I smiled back and took a step back.

"I guess, your, um, cloths," I stuttered. I heard Tucker snicker, probably at my blush, and I shot him a deadly glare, to which he shrunk back from. Naturally, Danny didn't notice a wink of it. I walked around back to my bedroom, grabbed my backpack off my bed, and stormed back into the bathroom, pulling out Danny's signature white and red t-shirt and worn baggy blue jeans.

"Here," I shoved them onto Danny's lap, then spun on my heel and grabbed Tucker's arm as I left him to change. It was about fifteen minutes before Danny called us back in, still in the jumpsuit and a worried frown on his face. Great, what now?

"Guys, it won't come off," he gestured at the glowing HAZMAT covering his body. Shiz.

"You sure?" I asked, walking up to him, studying the front where the zipper was.

"Um, ya!" He sounded a bit hysterical. Tucker came up behind him and started studying the material.

"Did you try the gloves?" I asked, we could hide everything else under cloths if it came to that. He looked away,

"Yes," he mumbled, but something about his expression told me he wasn't being completely truthful. I quickly grabbed his left hand and gripped the end of the glove, getting ready to tug it off.

"Sam, no!" Danny shouted, phasing right out of my grip, he cradled his left hand to his chest. I became frustrated, how were we going to help if he wasn't going to let us?!

"Danny, give me your hand," I held out my hand for his. He gave my his right hand, not the left I was holding before. I squinted my eyes in suspicion.

"Other hand," I ordered.

"Sam..." he begged, and I knew I was pushing it, but I just wanted, no, needed to know. I looked pointedly back down at my hand. He sighed, "your not going to like it," he whispered gently lowering his left hand into mine. Tucker leaned over Danny's shoulder to get a better look as I pinched the end of the longest finger of the glove and gently tugged it off. Our gasp was simultaneous. Tucker turned green and quickly looked away, I couldn't. I was morbidly hypnotized by the gruesome mark marring my best friends skin. His fingers and the back of his hand were perfectly smooth, not a single mark, I couldn't even pick out fingerprints, and looking at them one would think everything was fine, but once your eyes fell onto his palm, that illusion was shattered. I carefully cradled his hand in both of mine, afraid of jolting the hand and causing him pain, because how could something like that not hurt? It started near the edge of his palms, where the smooth skin suddenly darkened and blistered, hanging on in thin dark flakes. Moving inward, the flesh seamed to scoop downward as if it had been peeled of with a fork, violently torn away, the flakes of skin and muscle becoming darker and darker until they became pitch black where they rimmed the center. The closer to the center the more the flakes seemed to be held together by clumps of dark sticky looking maroon that I recognized as blood, though the wound itself was not producing any... anymore. The center was the worst, because in a jagged circle-like shape all the dark flakes had peeled off revealing the deepest part of the wound to be bare of all flesh and skin, and peeking out was a glimpse of dark white , half covered with the sticky red. Bone. That jarred me out of my hypnotism. Objectively, it was fine, but when I finally realized those dark and occasionally red flakes were charred flesh covered in boiled blood, and that that white gap was exposed and burnt bone, and that all of that was attached to, no a part of, my best friend, and my fault... well, there's just no way to explain those feelings. Honestly, the wound looked like the hand had been scraped and torn and pulled open by a fork, and then held palm down over an open flame. I looked at his hand for a moment more, and then turned to my own, looking at the unmarked pale skin, imagining it going through that trauma. The pain of something like that happening to it. I cringed and looked away, over Danny where he sat staring at me probably trying to gauge my reaction, and over to Tucker where he stood facing the wall with one hand braced against it, supporting all his weight against it as he slowly breathed in and out, presumably trying to get rid of the green tinge of his skin. I took a deep breath and looked back at the hand. Just looking at it caused phantom pains to run up my own hand.

"God..." It was all I could say. Then I noticed that, at the bottom, a trail of charred flesh broke away from the main wound and over to his wrist, where it disappeared under his jumpsuit. I gently placed my hand on the wrist (not wanting to disturb the misplaced flesh), and rolled up the sleeve, following the trail of blisters and boiled blood all the way up his arm. Danny looked away, staring intently at the door. I knew I should stop, I was just causing us all pain, I was making him relive trauma still fresh in his mind. I was making what had happened to real for Tucker and I, but still I continued till I had it rolled up to his shoulder, still following the broiled flesh, it was now in the front, facing the mirror. It had lightened and narrowed around his elbow, but it then began to darken again and became wider where it again disappeared under his jumpsuit, but this time at the shoulder. The stretchy fabric wouldn't roll any further, but my curiosity would not be curbed, and I decided to take another risk that I knew could not possibly have good consequences. I glided my arm over the surprisingly silky material until I was at the collar, I then explored a bit until I found the zipper (which was melted into an odd organic shape, and took a shaken breath. However, before I could do anything, a freezing cold hand was around my wrist, and when I looked up I was startled to see glowing green eyes meet mine, no trace of their usual joking (at least that's what was there when they were blue) in them.

"Please," it wasn't a whisper, but there was no volume or feeling behind the word. I sensed there should be, it was supposed to be full of emotion, but he couldn't seem to manage it. "Please don't do this, Sam," the flatness of his voice was made up for by his eyes, which bore into mine, glowing so brightly they rivaled the electronic lights above us. I looked away, and met Tucker's eyes. He was staring intently at us. He was behind us, but I knew he could still see the reflection of Danny's... flesh, in the bathroom mirror. He shook his head in desperation, begging me not to do it, and I looked away. Danny's hand had let go of my wrist, but he didn't break eye contact.

_Please, please, please..._ His voice echoed in my head in a way that had nothing to do with him being a ghost. I looked back at my hand on the zipper, and I knew. I knew that whatever was under this zipper, there was no going back from. It would prove once and for all, that no matter how much I wanted to pretend, my best friend was dead.

I sighed and slowly let go of the zipper.

"What do you mean it won't come off? The glove came off just fine." I whispered, slightly changing the subject. Tucker sighed in relief, Danny didn't react at all, unless you count the slight dimming of the glowing of his eyes.

"No," he said, "only the places that are extensively... injured," Tucker and I flinched at the word, knowing what he really meant, "will come off, that's my left sleeve, as you've already figured out, both my gloves," he saw my expression, "don't worry, the right hand isn't nearly as bad as the one you saw," he assured me, "my boots, which is actually the exception since my feet are fine, and the upper half of my chest..." I digested his words, the top half of his chest... suddenly I was very thankful I hadn't unzipped the mutilated zipper.

"That doesn't make sense, why would it do that?" Tucker asked, now that Danny had rolled down his sleeve and replaced his glove he was looking a lot better.

"Ya, that's kind of... sick," I added, "to make only the... injured" I borrowed his explanation, "parts visible, do you think that's how it is for all ghosts? Maybe it's some kind of cosmic cruelty for staying behind?" I was really just thinking to myself, not realizing how mean my words really were, as soon as I did, however, I abruptly shut up. Luckily, Danny didn't seem to affected by my words as he shook his head in disagreement.

"You guys are over thinking it," he chuckled with no humor, "I don't think it's anything that 'cosmic' or anything. I think it's just logic," Tucker and I looked at him in confusion. What was logic? "It's recreated. The parts that I can take off are the parts that were... disintegrated in the... accident. My left hand is the one that pressed the button, so it was directly touching the wall, therefore being exposed to the most electricity, disintegrating the glove and sleeve before doing what it did to my hand and arm. Then I was facing directly to the back, so my chest had the most exposure to the... uh, green sludge stuff, I should really figure out what that's called..." he trailed off in thought.

"Ectoplasm," I informed him, I had been thinking about it for a while, and I was pretty sure that's what the stuff was,

"Huh?" He asked

"I think the green stuff was ectoplasm, your Dad did say that's what powered the... portal, remember? He showed us a glowing green vile of it?" Blank stares from both Danny and Tucker. I sighed, secretly happy about the sense of normality of having to explain things that they ignored to them. "He said that everything in the 'ghost zone' is made of ectoplasm-"

"Even the ghosts?" Tucker interrupted, looking at Danny, who was glowing but wasn't green...

"That's what he said... maybe there are different colors?" I shrugged with a smile, but then the smile was whipped off my face when I remembered what we were talking about.

"Okay, ya, my chest was hit most directly by the 'ectoplasm', which probably disintegrated the front of my suit, and I suppose left over electricity came out the other hand, and that's why I can take off the other glove but not the sleeve." He explained to us. Honestly, I was surprised clueless Danny could come up with such a... logical explanation.

"What about your boots?" Tucker had this look on his face like he was trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe, which, now that I think about it, he kind of was.

"Well, I'm guessing the boots are the most protective and thickest part of the HAZMAT suit, so even though my feet were also in direct contact with the portal, my boots took the full force of the electricity and disintegrated, protecting my feet in a way the rest of my suit couldn't protect the rest of me..." He was staring vacantly into space. I felt the need to puke. He was talking about unimaginable pain without the slightest hint of emotion, it was... disturbing. Was it that he was far removed from it, or was it that, as a ghost, his emotions were dulled? Weren't his parents always saying how ghosts were only manifestations of sub-human consciousness or something? I really hope it's not the last one. That would mean Danny could no longer feel about me... and Tucker, of course, the way I felt about him... and Tucker.

"... but back to the problem. I can't take most of the suit off, and the parts I can take off are going to raise serious suspicion. A huge chunk of my hand missing is going to raise a few eyebrows," he was using his right hand to trace circles on the glove of his left hand, tracing the injury underneath. This was a problem, Danny couldn't very well go to school wearing a hazmat suit and gloves... where anyone could see them that is. I was struck with the sudden epiphany, so proud of the realization I snapped my fingers in the air, making it clear to Tucker and Danny that I had a solution. I picked his short and jeans off where he had laid them on the counter. Tossing the jeans to him first and motioning for him to put them on (over the jumpsuit), and then doing the same with the shirt and finally the shoes. I smiled at the result. He really did look like Danny now, the cloths making a more drastic change than anything not actually a part of someone should. The only differences now were the long black sleeves of the jumpsuit covering his arms under his short sleeved T-shirt, his silver gloves, glowing green eyes, and slight... brightness radiating off of him.

"Umm, Sam, sorry to burst your bubble and all..." Tucker started, seizing up Danny,

"But this doesn't really fix the problem... at all," aforementioned ghost boy completed for him.

"Not yet," I corrected, holding up one finger in the universal 'wait-for-it' gesture. I then ducked under the bathroom sink, rummaging in the cabinets underneath until I found what I was looking for. I emerged with a triumphant grin on my face holding my prize: two large roles of white linen bandages. I remember my annoyed sigh when my parents had bought the things, insisting that generic adhesive substitutes for medical supplies were certainly not good enough for the Manson's, and had insisted on buying 'real bandages' instead. Never in my life have I been so thankful for my parents' pompous attitudes.

Tucker and Danny didn't share in my ecstatic thankfulness, though, each simply raising an unimpressed eyebrow at my trophies. I sighed, it was so hard being the smart one.

"Danny, give me your arm," I instructed, placing one roll of bandages on the bathroom counter and unwinding the other. Danny held out his right arm awkwardly (since I was on his left side and it would have been much easier to just hand me the other one) as if giving me the one that was only mildly injured would erase the sight of the other... less fortunate one, from my mind. I sighed in exasperation and gave him a look that said 'I-know-what-you're-doing-and-I'll-let-it-slide-this-once', and took his arm in one hand. He gave me a sheepish grin that disappeared with my next words.

"I'm going to have to take off the glove," I informed him, and he nodded solemnly. As promised, this hand wasn't nearly as bad as the other. Where the other was charred, burnt, and on the verge of crumbling, this one was simple blackened in a much smaller, oddly symmetrical, circle, and had a sort of chalky powdery look to it. Of corse it was still highly disturbing, but it wasn't quite as gruesome or sickening. I started wrapping the bandage around his fingers when a thought struck,

"Do you want me to put like, some kind of burn cream or something underneath..." I trailed off. But Danny understood my incomplete question and shook his head.

"It... it doesn't hurt," he announced in that new echoing voice of his, "I can't even feel it," he continued, greatly surprising me. How could something like that not hurt? He noticed my skeptical glance and he flexed his fingers as if to prove his point, or make sure of it. "It just feels... like a normal hand. It doesn't feel any different to me, I don't know, maybe it's just... phantom feelings," he chuckled a bit as if the last part of that sentence was somehow amusing.

I was still skeptical, and a little creeped out, but I just shook my head and continued wrapping his hand with the bandages. First I wrapped each individual finger under the first joint twice, then I moved on the the palm carful to not disturb the... burn, twisted around the thumb and tied around the wrist. At first I was going to stop there, but decided it would be less suspicious, and more helpful to just continue all the way up over his black jumpsuit sleeves until the end is covered by his t-shirt sleeves, right under the elbow. I then started on the other hand. I carefully pulled off the glove and averted my eyes, not wanting to see the gruesome injury, if Danny noticed he didn't call me out on it, instead deciding to straighten the bandages himself once I was finish. Once I was done, I wrapped everything up twice to make sure nothing fell or came undone, it kind of looked like Danny was wearing some kind of long white fingerless gloves.

Danny stood up, appraising himself in the mirror. He raised one eyebrow and shot me a questioning glare. Tucker was leaning against the back wall, PDA in one hand and other hand covering his mouth clearly trying to hold in a snicker.

"Dude, you look... ridiculous," he laughed. Danny smirked.

"Hey! It was all I had! I didn't see any of you two come up with any brilliant ideas!" I defended my choice. Plus, I liked it, it was different and I thought it was pretty cool. Danny looked so much like Danny now, the only differences were his bright green eyes and white ethereal glow. Danny flexed his fingers and then ran them along the bandages of the opposite arm.

"Ya, right," Tucker countered. I rolled my eyes,

"Because you're the incarnation of cool," I countered right back, "just give him the contacts," I finished. Those green beams of light were making me uncomfortable. Tucker grumbled 'I am to cool', as he shuffled around in his pockets, taking out a small white case and handing them to Danny.

"It's, not so bad," Danny gave a small smile as he popped open the case and slipped the blue into his eyes, and I beamed in return. He turned to look straight at me, and i had to resist the urge to shout in joy. Standing there was finally Danny, my Danny. Sure, I could nitpick and say his skin was a bit darker, or that his hair wasn't the same pitch black, that his body was glowing and his eyes were unnaturally bright, but it was Danny none the less. Tucker snickered, not having seen Danny full on yet, he wasn't in the same state of joy that I was.

"You're just saying that because it was Sam's idea, lovebirds," he coughed the last bit under his breath just loud enough for us to hear.

"We. Are. **Not lovebirds!**" Danny and I shouted at him at the same time. Tucker gave us a look, and I felt my face flush tomato red. I turned to see if, like always, Danny shared my reaction... and he did, except it wasn't the same warm red Danny-like blush I had grown to lov- um, recognize. His cheeks had flooded with a cold solid green. _Great, just great._

* * *

_**A/N: **I really like this chapter. Anyway, I've decided to try something. Danny Phantom Trivia! At the end of each chapter I'll ask a Danny Phantom cannon question, and the first person to get it right gets a virtual prize! (Aka, nothing but recognition, but still!). The questions will start out as pretty easy ones, and become gradually harder so here's the first one:_

Who is the first person Danny talks to in the series, and what does he (Danny) say?


	6. Deadly Pains

_**A/N:**__ Congrats to __**princessbinas**__ and __**Diana Lily**__ for being the firsts to answer the DP trivia. __**Princessbinas**__ was the first to get that Danny was talking to his Dad, and __**Diana Lily**__ was the first with an exact quote. "Uh, actually, Dad, I wanna be an astronaut." Virtual ghost cake for the both of you! To everyone else who answered, better luck next time and don't forget to check out the new question at the bottom of this page!_

_And finally, just a note: This chapter takes place a little after Sam's P.O.V starts in the last chapter. In Danny's first P.O.V Sam has just handed Danny his cloths the first time, before she knew the suit couldn't come off or the extent of Danny's injuries. In Tucker's Sam has just taken off Danny's glove. Then Danny's P.O.V restarts from where it left off._

* * *

**_Danny P.O.V._**

I sighed as Sam and Tucker left the room, letting my small smile of faked reassurance slip off my face. They didn't understand. I couldn't fit in with the living anymore. I was dead now. Was it fair? No. Did I ask for it? No. Do I want this? I could accept it more then I did originally, but no, not really. Is it right? Sadly, the answer is still yes. Why did these questions keep on coming up in my head? I sighed as I floated off the infernal chair. It's not that it was uncomfortable, per say, it was just... unnatural. This new body was not meant to be held down or supported. If I wanted to sit, I would sit, chair or no chair. I floated up to the mirror and ran my hand through my stark white hair. I had read once that that's what happened to people who were electrified, their hair turned white. I wonder if my white hair is a result of being electrocuted like my 'tan' skin is, or simply a result of being a ghost, I would probably never know... Wait! stark white? I blinked and looked again. I specifically remember Sam dying my hair black again, so why was it white?! Does the dye not work on ghosts or something? That would be really stupid. I pinched a piece of the offending hair and plucked it quickly off my head to see if I could find any traces of dye on it. I could, the hair was inky black.

"What the...!?" I exclaimed as I pulled more of my shaggy hair in front of my eyes. Crossing my eyes I was just able to see the lock of dark hair. I looked back up at the mirror. White. That's when I realized something and, on a limb, held up the previously plucked strand of dark hair to the mirror. It's reflection was a vivid white. Okay, so the dye wasn't the problem. It was me. My reflection only reflected my ghost self. That wasn't good! What if someone else saw my reflection!? It would ruin all of Sam's plan! Then I realized something else. Someone already had seen my reflection. Tucker had been looking at the mirror the whole time, how come he didn't say anything? He would have noticed if my hair in the mirror was white and the hair on my head was black... unless he couldn't see it. I thought about it for a second. It was entirely possible, given what had happened so far, that only I could see my ghostly reflection. Maybe it's that cosmic karma Sam was talking about earlier. To never be able to see my human self again.

I shook my head of the thought and concentrated on my assignment. Change into my normal human cloths. I tucked my feet into the air, holding them in front of me so that I could get the boots off. I wrestled off the footwear and then let them go, and, surprisingly, instead of clunking to the ground, they slowly floated around like half filled balloons. Not rising, but not falling either. I chuckled and hit each one on the top, and they slowly drifted down until they touched the floor. I chuckled a bit more and pulled off my gloves, flexing my tingling fingers, I then reached for the zipper at the neck of my jumpsuit, only to freeze up completely. Slowly, I lifted my hands to my face, making sure the slight reflection I had caught in the mirror wasn't just my imagination. It wasn't. I held my hands up in front of me, palms facing upwards and took in what I saw there.

"God,"

My right hand wasn't a big deal. It simply had a small chalky black circle directly at the center of my palm. It was a perfectly symmetrical circle and could be easily mistaken for someone drawing on my with chalk and them covering it with ink. Of course, it wasn't chalk and it most certainly wasn't ink... That wasn't what really caught my attention though, it was my left hand that I couldn't keep my eyes off of. _The one I hit the side of the portal, that button, with_, I remembered. Tingling sensations shot through my body originating from the mark, and I flinched. _So much pain, so much pain_, I turned my head away from the gruesome injury, but couldn't help looking back. For all the horror that mark carried... _it's kinda beautiful_. I didn't know why I thought that. I have never been attracted to gruesome things, the weird and the unnatural where all Sam's territory. Yet... the way the mark curved into my palm like an upturned hill, the way the colors slowly graduated from light to dark like a deadly sunset. The lone dot of white covered by a dot of pure red so that only a crescent of the pure light color was visible. It was so... _perfect_.

I ran the fingers of my right hand over the shape, tenderly at first, but to my surprise there was no pain. So much horrible pain was caused by this mark, how could I not stand to look away? _So much horrible pain, so much pain, so much_... And then I doubled over, barley holding in a scream.

Tendrils of electricity crawled through my body originating from the injury and somewhere in my chest like an icy fire swallowing me whole, just like the portal... I could feel the electricity flowing through my every nerve, from the left side to the right. I felt it all gather and then release right from the circle on my right hand. Then, just as suddenly, it all stopped. I straightened up and floated higher as I felt my toe just barley scrape the ground, feeling the psychological urge to pant even though my body had no need. It hadn't felt anywhere near as powerful as the portal had, but it felt the same way. It felt like... my death, _and it came from my hand_ I suddenly realized with perfect clarity what had happened. It was a reenactment of my death, that was how the injuries had been made, the transfer of electricity. Yet, that didn't explain why it had felt like there was a huge insubstantial electric weight on my chest. Unless... my face would have paled if I was alive as I reached up with a shaky hand to the zipper of my jumpsuit. Halfway down the zipper stuck and refused to go any farther, but that didn't matter. I could already see more than enough.

"Oh. My. Fu–"

* * *

**_Tucker P.O.V._**

I had barley glanced it for five seconds before every bit registered immediately in my head, and I had to look away. I concentrated on my breathing as I fixated on the wall, _in, out, in, out_. Well, pretended to fixate on the wall, that is. In reality my eyes could only see one image. My friends charred burnt mutilated flesh and blood. I could only hear his other worldly wail from when I heard him get zapped in the portal. From when I heard him die in the portal. That was what was happening, he was being burnt and torn apart. How many milliamps of electricity had coursed through him to cause something like that? The average outlet has 15-20, the portal was plugged into at least eight of those and was supposed to self generate power. It takes 50 milliAmps to kill in perfect circumstances. Bad heart, wet, weak tolerance. Danny was healthy, dry, and wearing protective clothing. It takes 100 milliAmps to burn skin, Danny's skin was beyond burnt, it was charred. In the range above 200, the shocking actually keeps the heart from defibrillating, therefore keeping you alive. Since he defiantly was exposed to much more than it would take to simply burn skin, and he didn't survive, Danny would have had to have well over 500 milliAmps of electricity coursing through his body **_(1)_**. I was so lost in thought that I was startled to realize Sam and Danny were talking.

"Please don't do this, Sam," that was Danny. I was standing behind them, but the mirror allowed me to see everything. I wished I couldn't. What I saw was a dark burn mark from the injury on his hand travel up his rolled up sleeve and ducking into his shoulder. Sam had her hand on the zipper of his jumpsuit. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. _No_, I didn't want to see whatever it lead to. Danny's hand was bad enough! Why was Danny letting her do this!? Then I looked at Danny, and was startled by the odd look on his face. He was torn, like he was arguing about something to himself. Maybe letting us see and not letting us see? There was an undeniable shift as his expression went eerily blank, and he let go of Sam's hand. He was going to let her!

When Sam looked away from him for a second, I was incredibly grateful. I lightly shook my head as I looked into her eyes. Sam was cracking, I could see it. Neither one of us would be able to take what was under that jumpsuit, and we both knew it. I sighed in relief when she let go and changed the topic, if only slightly.

This topic wasn't much better. Sam and I flinched every time Danny hinted at his 'injuries' as he called them.

"Why would it do that?" I asked after Danny told us what parts would and wouldn't come off. Why would only the injured come off, logic would dictate it should be the other way around, right? He didn't need to cover the parts that aren't injured.

"You guys are over thinking it," Danny chuckled coldly, "I don't think it's anything that 'cosmic' or anything. I think it's just logic," Logic? I was already pretty sure it was the opposite of logic... "It's recreated. The parts that I can take off are the parts that were... disintegrated in the... accident..."

Danny kept on talking, but I was only barely listening. _Disintegrated_, the word would not compute. His jumpsuit made of Hazmat, which was designed for the specific purpose of dissuading electrical charge, was _disintegrated_. Maybe this meant little to the average person, but not me. Lightning has been known to leave plain cloth unharmed from time to time. Spandex, let alone HAZMAT, wouldn't even be effected by it. I thought Danny was exposed to somewhere around 500 milliAmps of electricity. Lightning carries well over 50,000 Amps. That's... That's over 50,000,000 milliAmps! Enough pure energy to cause internal burns and make flesh and bone literally explode inside of the body and that still wouldn't disintegrate HAZMAT! Actually, it was near impossible for any amount of electricity to do something like that, unless... Oh God. How long was Danny in there? I thought about it hard, really hard. It seemed so fast and so long. I ended up reenacting the scenario in my head just to find out. I deemed it to be about seven seconds. _Seven seconds ripped my best friends life away, a measly seven seconds..._ Now was not the time to think things like that. The average lightning strike was about 0.2 to 1 seconds. Danny was exposed to the full power of a bolt of lightning over a seven second period, it was gradually ripping away at the HAZMAT, frying him and burning him at the same time... Yet, it still didn't make sense! That amount of electricity would have never been contained in a small hole in the wall! It would have needed something to conduct the energy into Danny, something that was an excellent conductor and able to disintegrate items, something like–

"Ectoplasm," I don't know why that specific word from Sam broke into my thoughts at the moment, but it did.

"Huh?" Danny asked her, looking a bit dazed, like he had come from somewhere else.

"I think the green stuff was ectoplasm," Sam repeated. The green stuff... The green stuff that had been floating around Danny in the portal! If it could support large amounts of power without deforming and was attracted to something in humans it would make the perfect conductor for keeping things relatively in the portal and towards Danny... "your Dad did say that's what powered the... portal, remember? He showed us a glowing green vile of it?" The ectoplasm stuff powered the portal?! That would mean it was sort of a self perpetuating energy, meaning it was the conductor!

I paled at the thought, Danny was floating in a conductor being chalked full of electricity confined to a small area over an extended period of time. With a conductor, it only takes about 12.5 milliAmps to kill, but it would have taken the whole 50,000,000 to do away with parts of his suit... That means the original output would have been doubled in the immediate area around Danny, directly exposing him to 100,000 Amps, or 100,000,000 milliAmps! That wasn't comparable! Think of being tied onto a mediaeval stretching machine (that amount of electricity pulls people apart molecule by molecule), then thrown into the center of ball lightning, in a pool full of oil, promptly set on fire, and then multiply it by ten! No physical body could have lasted long enough for the disintegration to occur, yet here was Danny, only slightly darkened, yet parts disintegrated when he died. How!? Again, Sam conveniently supplied the answer.

"He said that everything in the 'ghost zone' is made of ectoplasm-" preservatives, of course.

"Even the ghosts?" I interrupted, looking at Danny. If the ghosts themselves were made out of this substance, that meant it had it's own properties of shape and memory, meaning it would also have qualities of preservation.

"That's what he said... maybe there are different colors?" I didn't know why she was talking about its color when there were much bigger things brought to light by her statement! The ectoplasm preserved Danny, keeping him alive to undergo mass amounts of energy. I was seconds away from puking. That was so sick, Danny had probably gone through more pain in those five seconds than every normal person on Earth has gone through in their entire lives! Danny didn't even seem to care as he continued.

"Okay, ya, my chest was hit most directly by the 'ectoplasm', which probably disintegrated the front of my suit, and I suppose left over electricity came out the other hand, and that's why I can take off the other glove but not the sleeve." He actually made sense... and added another awful piece to the puzzle. From what he said, it was very possible the ectoplasm itself, besides perpetuating and conducting electricity, was also able to disintegrate items in and of itself.

"What about your boots?" I asked, there was no way electricity, conductor or not, could have gotten rid if rubber based HAZMAT covered boots, so if they had also disintegrated, it would mean the ectoplasm was in fact a toxin of some sort.

"Well, I'm guessing the boots are the most protective and thickest part of the HAZMAT suit, so even though my feet were also in direct contact with the portal, my boots took the full force of the electricity and ectoplasm, disintegrating and protecting my feet in a way the rest of my suit couldn't protect the rest of me..." Forget pool of oil! Danny's death was like being dropped and stretched in a vat of radioactive acid on fire while stuck in a sphere of ball lightning! It may have been relatively quick, it just took seven seconds to have everything he ever knew ripped away from him, but it was more painful then I would ever be to go through and smile afterwards. Isn't that what everyone wants? A quick and painless death? Danny didn't have that luxury, and now he had to exist with that knowledge and those memories, possibly forever. I was going to be sick.

_**(1)**__ Tucker knows all this because he is, after all, a techno-geek, he makes it his job to know about energy output. I, on the other hand, am not and do not, so I hope you appreciate the research. ;-)_

* * *

**_Danny P.O.V._**

I stared wide eyed at the gruesome '_amazing, beautiful, wondrous_' hole in my chest, right over where my heart should be, oh, my heart was still there all right, but it wasn't how it was supposed to be. The wound itself was like an enlarged version of the one on my left palm, starting off soft and becoming deeper and darker the closer you got to the center. Dark flakes of charred flesh clumped together by dark sticky maroon goo masquerading as blood (I knew that this also was a recreation, I instinctively knew I no longer had blood to bleed) swirling together in gruesome reminder '_perfect symmetry_' around a ravaged pit '_indescribable void_' in the disturbing '_perfect_' center... I shook his head to get rid of those traitorous thoughts, this was the mark that caused my death! It was horrible '_beautiful_' No! Not beautiful! I have to stop thinking like that, and I most certainly should not be so utterly hypnotized by it! My hand twitched towards it, and I thought I caught a wistful look on my face the second before I shook it and relaxed my hand. This burning injury is a physical reminder of all that pain, that horrible burning freezing pain...

_Everything is green, I can only see green as it twirls and dances around me. I'm confused, I don't know what's happening. The portal, ghosts, a button of some sort... Then it doesn't matter as I feel myself being pulled apart from the inside out. I scream, but it doesn't help. It's cold, I feel like I'm being burnt by ice and torn apart like paper. My chest was being bombarded by a burning freezing pain! Stop! Someone just make it stop!_

I pull back, knocking myself against the back wall of the bathroom, my chest rising and falling in what would be hyperventilation if breathing was actually accompanying the motion. I slid down the wall, nearly sitting on the floor despite my aversion to it. I had been there! Back in that horrible machine as it ripped me apart! I could feel every pain as it formed, all originating from my death wound... So much pain, how could I exist after so much pain?... No! I couldn't think about that! That's not the point, the point is I am here, and I can do good. I can do good. I can make my death worth it. I shake my head again and gently hovered off and away from the wall and back up to the mirror. I needed another look at the ugly '_perfect_' mark that was my death...

It really was a larger version of the one on my palm with its burnt flesh and boiled blood, except, in this center, it wasn't bone that was showcased, it was so much worse '_better_' it was the top half of my own still heart.

* * *

The muscle was charred blackish burgundy and had a chunk missing, looking as if it had been torn off. I immediately knew that was what killed me. It wasn't electricity, it was the ectoplasm drilling through my chest and literally ripping out a piece of my heart. The rest of the organ was a bloody dried red that leaked out onto the edges of the wound. That wasn't the most awful '_mesmerizing_' part, though. The stillness was what frightened '_fascinated_' me.

From the time every human being is a small child, they have instilled in them, by others and even instinct, what a heart is supposed to do. Sure maybe they don't know at first that it doesn't look like the front of a Valentines Day greeting card, or that it pumps blood through the body, or even that it keeps you alive, what they do know, however, is that it beats. No matter what, every living- living being the key word here- heart is always moving. Nothing could stop that but death itself, and so no one could ever stare at their heart stopped, because it never would for as long as they could still be aware of it.

It was with fourteen years of this constant beat and knowledge that my mind battled with as my incredulous eyes took in my own heart, visible through my own chest, refusing to do what it was created for. Refusing to beat any longer. It didn't move or convulse. It simply gave up and and was still, never so much as twitching. That still heart was the single most disturbing '_beautiful_' thing I had ever seen in my entire existence, and I again had the morbid urge to feel my non existent heartbeat under my palm... No longer able to resist the impulse, I slowly lifted my injured hand and placed it in my chest, letting it cup the top half of my deformed dead organ tenderly. To my surprise, I could actually feel my hand exploring my heart. I could feel my own hand touching my heart. That's just so... wrong. It was strange, the feeling. I've never felt any nerve signals from my heart, it's never been touched before... It was both horrible and comforting at the same time, to literally have my heart in the palm of my hand.

_I'm touching my heart. I am reaching through the flesh of my burnt open chest and touching my heart! _I immediately pulled my hand away and in one swift motion pulled my gloves back on and jerked the zipper of my jumpsuit back up, pausing only a moment to take in the '_wonderful_' awful mark one last time, determined not to look at it, and especially not to touch it, ever again.

* * *

Sam had her hand on the zipper. I had called them back into the bathroom to explain that my jumpsuit didn't come off, not entirely a lie, but she managed to figure out the full truth anyway. Now Sam had seen my hand, and was determined to look at what she knew was at the end of the burnt trail. I held back her hand as she held the zipper. I didn't want her to do that, I didn't want her to see it, she wouldn't '_understand_' be able to take the sight. I knew that, yet, at the same time, I desperately wanted her to pull it down. Just so I could see it again. Yes, I promised myself not to look at it, yet I was drawn. I needed to see the marred flesh and gaping wound, it was just so mesmerizing... Perhaps it was because it was grounding proof that I was in fact dead? Proof that I knew my friends did not want to see.

"Please," even to me the word sounded flat and untrue as I asked Sam not to do it. I wanted her to, for me. But no, I couldn't let her, she wouldn't be able to handle it. I tried again, still, sincerity alluded me.

"Please don't do this, Sam," my voice was still flat, but I hoped I she could still tell as I stared into her eyes that she desperately needed to stop before I lost the will to stop her. She seemed to be thinking about it as she looked away over my head, presumably to Tucker. Then she looked back at the mirror. It was torture! Was she going to do it or not? I desperately wanted her to... Gently I let go of her hand on my zipper, there, now it was completely her choice. If she didn't do it, that would be better for her and Tucker, and if she did... I would be able to see it again, out of no fault of my own. She let go, and greatly unexpected disappointment washed through me.

Then we started talking about the problem at hand, and I told them about my theories involving the jumpsuit. They were more than theories, though. I knew they were true. I could feel it. I couldn't think of any solution, and I thought for a blissful moment we were going to have to abandon this plan, but then Sam seemed to have a sudden idea as she snapped her fingers and threw me my clothes, motioning for me to put them on over the jumpsuit. I did as she asked, and,not only did it not help, as my gloves were still obviously plainly visible, but it was extremely... Wrong.

Have my cloths always been so... heavy? I found myself wondering as I twitched and fidgeted under the fabric. The solid shirt alone felt like it weighed twenty pounds as it pushed down on my corporeal shoulders. The pants I was sure would slip right off at any moment with all the weight they were placing on my hips, and the shoes... I could barely keep myself from groaning, my feet felt like they were incased in cement. It would have been less effective to drill me to the ground. It was complete physical agony, knowing how much effort it would now take to get off the ground. If there were any doubts before, I now knew with complete certainty that cloths were not made with ghosts in mind.

I couldn't let my friends know just how agonizingly uncomfortable I really was, though. They, especially Sam, looked so happy to see me in my old signature outfit that I couldn't dream of complaining. This was what they wanted so badly, for me to be who I was, and I'll be damned (I flinched, bad word choice) if I didn't try my hardest to be that person. I never thought I would feel like such a stranger amongst the things and people that defined me.

"Umm, Sam, sorry to burst your bubble and all..." Tucker started, breaking through my thoughts as he looked me over,

"But this doesn't really fix the problem... at all," I finished, a smile on my face. It was forced, my cloths felt like they were getting heavier with every passing minute, but it seemed to work as Sam corrected,

"Not yet," with a knowing gleam in her eyes. Then she was rummaging around in the cabinets under the bathroom sink and came out wearing the biggest smile and holding two rolls of white tape. All my awkwardness was worth it for that single smile.

"Danny, give me your arm," she ordered. I hesitated for a moment, remembering her reaction to my hand. The beautiful mark, she had stared at it in nothing less than absolute horror and fear, not a hint of the wonder it induced in me. I didn't know which emotion I hated more. I didn't want to see Sam hurt or afraid, especially not by or of me, but at the same time, that horror, that look of nearly hate she had directed at the mesmerizing pool of flesh, it disgusted me. I knew at that moment she couldn't understand. I couldn't tell her how these wounds made me feel, so full and purposeful. She would think it was wrong, she wouldn't understand... I passed her my right hand. The one that was nothing worse than a chalky mess. She shot me a look that told me 'I know what you're doing', _I doubt it_, I thought, but I would never admit it, because if Sam couldn't understand me, who ever would?

I flashed her a forced smile of apology, and then frowned when she told me she had to take off the glove. Sure, I already knew it was coming, but that didn't mean I liked it. I nodded and let her slip it off. There was a small gasp, and then she started to wrap one of the rolls around my hand. After finishing my fingers, she paused.

"Do you want me to put like, some kind of burn cream or something underneath..." she started. I understood what she was asking and shook my head no. I knew she was just trying to help, but her question just... honestly, it took effort to keep my hands from clenching.  
"It... it doesn't hurt, I can't even feel it," I forced out. She didn't look convinced, and as I looked back down at the hand, I understood her hesitance. I cleared my mind of the beauty it saw there, and tried to look at it from her perspective. It was... awful. It was freakin' charred burnt skin, flesh, and muscle! How in the world was my hand even moving! The muscle was torn and shredded and! Oh God, I twitched my fingers, fully realizing it shouldn't even be possible! Oh, god, oh god, oh god... I realized I was having a panic attack, and if I could, I would again be hyperventilating, but as it was, I had no outward signs besides the twitching of my fingers. I relaxed as I really thought about the feeling, honestly, not only did it not hurt, but my hand felt... Normal. Not like I was missing part of it, just like it always had, granted a bit cooler and... tingly.

"It just feels... like a normal hand," I tried to explain. "It doesn't feel any different to me, I don't know, maybe it's just... phantom feelings," it was silent for a moment, and then I laughed, phantom feelings, ha. I thought about my new name, Phantom... I spared a moment to wonder where it came from as Sam continued wrapping up my hand.

Phantom... a ghost, a figment of the imagination, something that doesn't completely exist... I have no idea why that name had hit me when the girl asked, but I think it suits me quite well. Phantom. Sam finished the right hand and arm, and started on the left. Except she was pretty sloppy at first, because she wasn't actually looking. She refused to look at my hand, was it really that horrible for her? Maybe it reminded her that I wasn't really the same Danny? Not the same Danny... not Danny, Phantom. I was Phantom.

I watched as she continued to wrap up my arm, she looked so... fragile. It was never a word I thought I would use to describe Sam, but it was true. She looked on edge, as if anything could tip her over and she would fall... I couldn't tell her. I realized it suddenly, I couldn't tell her about Phantom, the new name I choose. It would break her. I sighed just as she finished up, it seemed like there was suddenly a lot I couldn't tell Sam anymore. I didn't like it, not one bit. Sam used to be... well, Sam was something special. I could talk to her about anything and everything, she just understood me in every way, in ways no one else, not even Tucker who had been my friend for longer, could ever understand. Now... now she was just another person to hide things from. I sighed again as I finally stood up off the chair, and pretended to look over myself in the mirror, when really I was practicing trying to keep from looking like I was weighed down by my cloths to much. It's not like I could see the bandages in the mirror anyway, there I still looked like the ghost version of myself. I wondered briefly if they noticed that suddenly I wasn't floating anymore, then forgot about it. I knew there was no way they would notice, because so far as they were concerned, I shouldn't be floating.

Sam and Tucker were waiting for a reaction, so I thought about what the old Danny would have done, and I shot Sam a playful glare. I heard Tucker join me with a muffled snicker.

"Dude, you look... ridiculous," he laughed. I smiled, it was nice to hear his voice not entirely freaked out.

"Hey! It was all I had! I didn't see any of you two come up with any brilliant ideas!" Sam went straight into defensive mode. You didn't mess with Sam when she got like this, so instead I forced myself to look over the bandages she wrapped around me. I felt like a half wrapped mummy, after all, I had all the qualifications. Wrapped up? Check. Linen bandages covering gruesome injuries? Check. Glowing eyes? Check. Part of the league of the undead? Check. Hmm, if this ghost thing doesn't work out, I could always try a being a mummy for a bit...

Next thing I know Tucker is handing me a small white case, the contacts. I shoot them a withering glare, half expecting laser beams or something to shoot out of my eyes and incinerate them. Instead I looked up and gave them (Tucker and Sam, not the contacts) a small smile,

"It's not so bad," I told Tuck in regards to his comment about Sam's bandages, it was a lie of course, my arms felt like weights at my sides, but it was worth it for Sam. Then I turned to look at my glowing eyes in the mirror as I opened the contacts case. I just had to remember that I would always be able to see the green. I gently slipped the contacts into my eyes.

Once when we were small I used a pair of Tucker's contacts for a day on a dare, so I thought I knew what to expect, I was wrong. I resisted the urge to yank them out as they literally melted into my eyes! It felt like they were turning to goop on top of me, and I blinked twice to try and settle them. It was a relief when the melting feeling went away, but they were still extremely irritating, they felt like I had my eyes open underwater in a chlorine swimming pool. Not completely painful, exactly, but definitely stinging a bit. Regardless I turned to Sam. The smile that lit up her face was beyond anything any self respecting goth should ever allow, but I had the distinct feeling she didn't care. I smiled in response and felt the need to laugh. Then Tucker burst in with his opinion about the bandages not being 'to bad'.

"You're just saying that because it was Sam's idea," he pointed out. He was right of course, not that I would ever dream to admit it. I chuckled a bit. "lovebirds," he added in a poorly disguised cough. I felt old annoyance (and embarrassment, not that I'll admit it) rise up inside of me,

"We. Are. Not lovebirds!" Sam and I shouted at him at the same time, just like a thousand times before. Tucker gave us a look, and I felt a blush rise to my cheeks, I think. It felt almost, cold. I turned to look at Sam at the same time she turned to look at me, but I only got to enjoy the apple red flush on her checks for a second before it paled to a frown. I looked at Tucker and he to was no longer laughing as he studied my face. I frowned to.

"What?" I asked in minor annoyance. To my surprise Sam raised a shaky hand and placed it on my check, as if in a trance. "Um, Sam?" I asked in concern. Then I to paused, her hand was so... warm. So amazingly comfortingly warm, I felt myself melting into it. Then just as suddenly she pulled away and frowned again.

"Dude, you're green," Tucker finally informed me as he turned me to the mirror, and, sure enough, right on my ghostly reflections face was the disappearing tinge of green, another second and it was gone. Sam walked to the corner of the bathroom, stomped her foot, and turned back to us.

"So close!" She fumed, "but no, ghosts just have to go and blush a freakish green!" She sighed as she flopped back onto the counter, face in her hands. I looked at Tucker, and he to seemed at a loss about what to do in this situation.

"It's fine, Sam. No one will even notice, Tucker just has to lay off the 'lovebird' comments and I won't even have a reason to blush," I pointed out. Sam looked up and frowned.

"I don't know, maybe you should wear some of my foundation..." she thought out loud, I immediately threw my hands up in a 'stop-right-there' gesture.

"Okay, I know you're worried, but there is no way on the world I'm wearing make-up, ever," I announced. Sam stood up and put her hands on her hips.

"Don't be stubborn Danny, do you want all this," she waved over my outfit and hair, "to have been for nothing?" She asked me.

"Oh no, don't play a guilt card with me, there is absolutely no way I'm wearing makeup, and that's final. I'm a guy, not a chick," Sam hit me over the head.

"Ow! What was that for?" I complained as I rubbed my head.

"One, for using the word 'chick', that was incredibly sexist, and two, for being stubborn. Guys wear make-up to, you know, actors and stuff," she responded, crossing her arms.

"Well, it's still not happening, because I'm still not a chick," I smirked as Sam's hand went right threw me as she tried to hit me again. "Intangibility, I knew it had some practical use," I laughed, I would never admit that I didn't actually mean to become intangible, she didn't have to know that. Sam frowned, smirked, turned, and smacked Tucker on the head.

"Hey!" He rubbed his head. "That's not fair!" He grumbled. Sam smiled and turned back to me.

"I don't know, Danny. I think you would make a mighty cute girl," she smirked. I used the only weapon at my disposal, I stuck out my tongue while crossing my arms.

"Ugh, you're so immature!" She pretended to be angry.

"I know you are, but what am I?" I responded in the most annoying voice I could muster.**_ (1)_**

"See, you guys do stuff like this and then don't want people to say you're lovebirds! Can you say mixed messages?" Tucker chuckled. Sam and I turned and glared at him. He rose an eyebrow... and we all burst out laughing. For a second I forgot all about the irritation in my eyes, the cloths that weighed me to the ground, and even the my new name and the marks of my death, because none of that mattered for that moment, all that mattered were three normal friends sharing a laugh. Then my cheek started to burn. It felt like electricity was racing across it in a delicate web and I stifled a groan. As I brought my freezing hand up to my cheek to stifle the internal fire, somehow I knew exactly what had caused the horrible shock, my mind flashed back to the feeling of Sam's warm hand over my cool blushing cheek. Tender human contact, she had burned me with her touch. I closed my eyes, almost close to tears at this new revelation, and I knew we could never function normally ever again, not if they couldn't even touch me without causing me pain. I was dead, and no costume change was ever going to change that.

* * *

_**(1)**__ Special Thanks to __**jeanette9a**__ for inspiring this argument. ;-)_

_Here's a pretty easy one:_

_**DP Trivia: **_What are the most common nicknames associated with Tucker?


	7. Dimmer than Bright

_Oh, gosh. I am so sorry! I can't believe how delayed this chapter was! I just sorta got stuck and... ugh! I got his with this new plot bunny (a rabid bunny, for sure), and it just wouldn't stop pouring out! I must have written ten pages for it! I actually have more to say about that, and I'll get to it at the bottom._

_Okay, the trivia. Congrats to __**Magicalghostgirl **__who got the two I was thinking of 'Bad Luck Tuck' and 'Techno Geek' first. However, I also feel I must give credit to __**Diana Lily **__who got the most names, some of which I didn't even think about. I guess that's my fault. I promise the next question won't be as unclear. Magic cookies to the both of you, and another 'prize' If you want it, which I'll get into at the bottom. Now onto the story!_

* * *

**_Danny P.O.V._**

I sighed in despair, slowly opening my eyes and glancing at Sam and Tucker. _They can't even reassure me without hurting me,_ I knew instinctively it was true. It wasn't just the touch, it was the feeling behind it. Kindness, caring, and love would physically pain me. It was extremely depressing knowledge. I didn't want to go threw with this acting alive plan in the first place, but with all these things I was learning about my ghost self, I was beginning to doubt it's even possible.

I rubbed my cheek to quell the burn, but it only dulled it a little. I jumped as a hand was placed on my shoulder.

"Man, is everything okay?" Tucker jumped into my thoughts, it sounded like he had been trying to get my attention for a while.

"Huh!?" I asked, startled, then I thought back and processed his question, "Ya, ya, guys I'm... I'm fine,"

"Dude,"

"Danny," Tucker and Sam sighed in disapproval simultaneously.

"Seriously, what's bugging you?" Sam asked, putting her hands on her hips and giving me her deluxe tell-me-now stare. It was pretty terrifying.

I sighed, an excuse, I needed an excuse... I looked around the room looking for help, looking down I examined my sleeve and I found one. I smiled up at Sam and Tucker,

"Nothing, guys. It's just my... aura," I pointed out a problem that I knew would grab their attention despite them probably knowing I was lying. "I mean, the dye and cloths and bandages are great and all, but they're all for nothing if I'm glowing," I lifted the arm that gave me my inspiration for the excuse to show them the otherworldly glow curling around it.

Looking closely now I could see that there was more to it than that, it wasn't just a glow, but almost a bright mist, and it wasn't exactly originating from me, but rather floated around me, like walking through fog that was attracted to warmth. It curled and billowed around me in a way that reminded me of dry ice, except the tendrils didn't evaporate into the air, but came back and snaked around me. Despite this, it wasn't exactly foggy, you could see me clearly, I just seemed bright and corporal. Underneath this mist there did seem to be an even brighter bit of light that was like a small membrane that actually did originate from my form and covered me in white light. As the mist nipped my skin the foggy light felt energized, but the light coming directly from me felt draining, not bad, just like it was using up energy, like waving my arm might.

While I was examining this, Sam was circling me, doing the same, and suddenly she reached out a hand and held it in my smoky aura. I flinched, subtly afraid of more electrifying pain, and then slowly relaxed in surprise. There was no pain. It actually felt almost... natural.

Even though she was behind me, I could feel Sam's hand in my aura. I could feel energy coming off of us. I felt the bright mist clinging into Sam, at the same time energy from her hand flowed into my aura. I don't know if she could see it or not, but I could, it was a dark, almost black, lilac that was pulled in and mixed with the bright light before being overtaken by my white. I could feel her emotions, she was sad and flustered and confused, it felt... nice. The feelings swirled around me and I felt my aura expanding up Sam's arm in search for more. I wondered if she could see the light, or if she knew what was happening.

To my disappointment, she removed her hand and continued to circle me, except now I could feel my aura reaching out to her. It would occasionally brush her skin or make a piece of her hair flutter. Suddenly she fell onto the chair in front of me with a 'humph'. I just stared as my aura reached forward slightly, but she was now to far away, and I could feel the loss of the comforting feeling of her energy.

"You know, you guys are free to help me at any time," She suddenly commented with an exasperated sigh. I gave her a small smile of apology, I had actually forgotten completely what she was talking about. Tucker, it seems, didn't.

"Danny's the outcast, you're the spooky ghost loving bat occult girl, and I am the looks and the charm, you tell me who should be thinking up ideas," Tucker joked, I could see Sam's hand twitch like she was going to hit him, and so I intervened.

"If by 'looks and charms' you mean tecno-geek of extremely bad luck extending to, but not exclusive to, girls, then yes, yes you are," I laughed. Tucker pouted and Sam smiled in fake annoyance.

"Looks like it's just you and me," she sighed, I nodded my head, still not sure what the problem was, I was still thinking about the feeling of Sam's feelings...

"Well, I guess first things first, we figure out what it is," she decided, looking around my body speculatively.

"Hmm?" I questioned offhandedly, trying to see if I could find the purple that I felt in my aura around her. She sighed in exasperation.

"Your aura, Danny, stay with the program, we're trying to get rid of the creepy light surrounding you, remember?" she smiled.

"Oh, right," I remembered, my aura, pretending to be human, these heavy cloths. I shifted a bit to release pressure from my shoulders. I thought about it for a moment, "well, it's some sort of outward collection of energy that's attracted to me, I guess," I informed her, just sort of knowing it.

Tucker and Sam just looked up at me blankly.

"Umm, what now?" Tucker rose an eyebrow at me. I shuffled in embarrassment of their stares, or rather tried to, considering my shoes kept me all but welded to the floor.

"Well, you see the outer layer that kinda looks like mist?" I asked, deciding to take it in steps. Tucker and Sam nodded. "Okay, so that's not actually coming from me, don't ask how I know, I just do. It feels like it's giving me energy, so it's like some kind of energy from the air, I guess," Sam and Tucker shuffled a bit closer to me and nodded in understanding. "Right, now, you see under the more floaty dispelled light there is a brighter thinner layer directly in contact with me?" I asked. Sam and Tucker seemed confused and shook their heads. "Here," I gave them my arm so they could get a closer look.

Tucker grabbed it first this time, and now that I knew what to look for I could see as my aura moved around Tucker this time, extracting a very dark yellow, almost brown, mist from around him. Like Sam's it was sad and confused, and made me feel energized. Sam didn't even have to touch my hand before it went for her. I smiled lightly in response.

"Wow, I didn't even notice that before!" Tucker exclaimed as he examined my arm. "Their like, two separate layers,"

"Ya," I nodded in response, "except that bottom layer feels different, I told you the top feels like energy coming to me, but the bottom feels like it's coming from me, get it?"

"Ya, I think..." Sam leaned back into her chair and Tucker retreated back to the wall. "So, it's energy... I suppose it's possible that the outer one is ambient energy in the environment that you're unconsciously attracting to yourself, and the bottom is a byproduct of energy that your body is using, I mean, if you think about it, that makes sense biologically if your thinking in living terms," Sam continued.

"Sounds about right," I shrugged, and Tucker nodded his head lightly in agreement.

"Okay, so... If you don't use the energy, the light should thin out because you don't need it," Sam uncrossed her legs and shuffled a bit in the chair, "soo, can you will it away?" she asked cautiously.

I stopped and thought about it for a moment, it seemed a little to simple...  
"I don't know. I mean, it's not like I've been a ghost for that long. I never tried," I responded, and Sam smiled.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Try it!" She encouraged me, and smiled at her excitement. _She'll be so happy if I can manage to act human for at least a little while... _and so concentrated as hard as I could on the swirling light that surrounded me. I decided that the best way to get rid of energy would be to use it up, and so I just... did. I can't really explain it, but I just thought of releasing all my energy, and it flared up around me in a huge wave, before settling back down, the bottom light pretty much invisible. Then the top started to swell as, I guess, my body tried to draw more energy to make up for that lost, but I didn't let it. I only allowed a tiny bit of outward energy tendrils to come in, almost a wave of utter exhaustion washed over me. I felt like I just ran a mile holding my breath, but Sam's face lit up in a smile.

"You did it!" She jumped up from her seat and Tucker gave me a thumbs up.

"T-thanks, S-Sam," I answered with a small smile. I felt like my legs were about to give way, and I stumbled a bit before catching myself.

"Danny!" Sam shouted as she saw me about to fall. She jumped towards me, "Are you okay?" she asked in concern, looking like she was ready to catch me if I fell. Tucker looked the same, they're really good friends.

"Umm... uh, ya, S-Sam, I'm, I'm fine," I stuttered out as I concentrated on gaining enough energy to stand without glowing. She didn't look convinced. I took a deep breath, steadying myself. When I looked up again I was completely solid. "I am fine, Sam," I smiled at her and walked out of the room onto her purple sheeted bed. "Now, don't we have some English homework we need to finish? Don't want to get Lancer pissed in class tomorrow..." I smiled up at them, "or we can just play the new version of Doom," I smiled mysteriously, and Tucker and Sam jumped onto the bed on either side of me, deciding unanimously on Doom, and animatedly starting a conversation on the pro's and cons of Doom vs. Doom 2.0.

* * *

**_Tucker P.O.V._**

"Man, is everything okay?" I tried to catch Danny's attention after Sam failed with a gentle pat on the shoulder. My hand fell right through him, but it worked.

"Huh!?"he jumped, "Ya, ya, guys I'm... I'm fine," he tried to assure us in the most unconvincing voice I've ever heard. Honestly, it was a bit disappointing.

"Dude,"

"Danny," Sam and I expressed that disappointment simultaneously.

"Seriously, what's bugging you?" Sam asked, and Danny bit his lip, searching the room for an excuse, he found one on his arm, a pretty valid one if I do say so myself. His aura was a pretty big stick in the mud of Sam's plan, and nothing I had brought with me was developed enough, so far, to be of any help to Danny just yet. I watched for a while as Sam circled Danny, debating wether or not to make a dirty joke about it, but remembered Danny's lime green blush and decided against it, and so I quickly grew board of this activity.

"You know, you guys are free to help me at any time," She suddenly commented in annoyance. I knew then she was exasperated, since she knew as well as I did that if anyone was going to come up with an idea abut all this, it was her, you know, being all goth and stuff.

"Danny's the outcast, you're the spooky ghost loving bat occult girl, and I am the looks and the charm, you tell me who should be thinking up ideas," I pointed out, what I think was, very logical.

"If by 'looks and charms' you mean tecno-geek of extremely bad luck extending to, but not exclusive to, girls, then yes, yes you are," Danny interrupted my adoration of myself, and I pouted at him before turning back to my game. Die, space man, die! Then Danny said something that caught my attention.

"well, it's some sort of outward collection of energy that's attracted to me, I guess," he shrugged as if it were no big deal. Yet, it didn't make sense. That would mean that in the lives of your everyday regular Joes they are directly exposed to large amounts of otherworldly energy that ghosts change into a personal atmosphere

"Umm, what now?" I questioned in confusion.

He started to explain what he was pretty sure his ghostly aura was. It was extremely interesting, and when he gave us his arm I leaned in close to get a better look at the 'lower layer' he was talking about. Sure enough, it was there.

"Wow, I didn't even notice that before! Their like, two separate layers," I was really surprised. It was really amazing, the complexity necessary to make light move like that, from two separate sources without overlapping, for it was clearly visible which lights came from where.

"Ya, except that bottom layer feels different, I told you the top feels like energy coming to me, but the bottom feels like it's coming from me, get it?" Danny asked us hopefully. I thought about it for a moment, I suppose it made sense... Sam shared my sentiment.

"Ya, I think. So, it's energy... I suppose it's possible that the outer one is ambient energy in the environment that you're unconsciously attracting to yourself, and the bottom is a byproduct of energy that your body is using, I mean, if you think about it, that makes sense biologically if your thinking in living terms," Sam voiced my thoughts exactly, and Danny agreed as well. However, that's where our thoughts on the matter differed.

"Okay, so... If you don't use the energy, the light should thin out because you don't need it. Soo, can you will it away?" she asked cautiously. I'm sorry, but that simply didn't make sense, biologically speaking, if anything, the light should get stronger, trying to force itself into the body. However, Sam seemed determined, and Danny seemed to think it was worth a shot, so I decided to sit back and enjoy the show.

At first it seemed to be a complete failure, as Danny's aura swelled wildly, then, for a moment, it leveled out, only to explode outward once again in a flurry of light. When I uncovered my eyes, tough, it was an amazing sight. Danny looked... well, like Danny. Completely normal non glowing. Amazing, it shouldn't have been physically (as in literally relating to the science of physics) possible, but somehow... I gave him a thumbs up as he turned to look at me. Ghost's were truly enigmatic creatures. I was snapped out of my thoughts by a sudden cry of,

"Danny! Are you okay?" By Sam, who braced herself behind the swaying boy. I quickly did the same. Danny suddenly seemed a bit weak on his knees, probably a result of not getting enough energy. Suddenly, it was gone, and Danny was giving us the biggest smile any of us had had since this whole incident started a few hours ago.

"Now, don't we have some English homework we need to finish? Don't want to get Lancer pissed in class tomorrow..." Danny smiled mischievously "or we can just play the new version of Doom," the answer was almost immediate.

"Doomed, duh," Sam and I chuckled.

"But we should play the first version," Sam added at the end, I looked at her horrified as we jumped next to Danny.

"What are you talking about! Doomed 2.0 has graphics so good you can practically walk into the screen!" I reminded her.

"Maybe, but the plot leaves a lot to be desired, and the playability isn't as good," she pointed out.

"What are you talking about! You press left arrow key 'Y' to jump, or press the spacebar 'r' and 'u' key at the same time. Then you simply press enter in the middle of any combination to kick or punch, or you can..." and we argued Doomed straight into the night.

* * *

**_Sam P.O.V_**

We all laughed, and I was truly happy for the first time since causing Danny's death. Looking at his form now, I knew we could pull this off. The laughter died down and Danny looked at Tucker, and then at me. He gave small smile and a chuckle. Something was... off, though. He gave a small start and raised his hand to his cheek. His eyes, his beautiful fake blue eyes held a tiny spark of pain and then sadness as he looked at us.

"Danny? Is everything... okay?" I asked carefully, hating to ruin the moment.

"Hmm?" He asked, looking distracted as he rubbed his cheek.

"Man, is everything okay?" Tucker jumped in, putting his hand on Danny's shoulder.

"Huh!?" Danny seemed to come out of his trance, and Tucker and I pretended not to notice as Tucker's hand passed right through his shoulder as he did. "Ya, ya, guys I'm... I'm fine,"

"Dude,"

"Danny," Tucker and I scolded at the same time. He never has been very good at lying to us. "Seriously, what's bugging you?" I asked, hands on hips.

He sighed and smiled at us. "Nothing, guys. It's just my... aura," he told us. "I mean, the dye and cloths and bandages are great and all, but they're all for nothing if I'm glowing," he lifted a bright white arm to prove his point. He was still lying, but I, and it seems Tucker, decided to let it slide since he brought up a very excellent point. I frowned. The glow did seem to be a bit less bright where it came from around his cloths, but they didn't help enough to make it unnoticeable, so giving him a hat and sending him on his merry way was out. I walked around him studying his aura, I was concentrating and figuring out how to hide it, of course, but there was a part of me (probably the freaky witch goth part) that couldn't help but notice the pure brightness of the projection. It was a beautifully bright mist that rose around his body like he was suspended in a crystalline cloud. Suddenly I had the urge to find out how it felt. I reached out and shivered, but it wasn't cold in the normal sense, in fact a tingle of warmth bolted through me, it was more of a coldness in my head then on my body. I immediately felt comforted, my feelings of fear and confusion draining away with a tingle down my  
arm. It was really nice and I wondered briefly if that was how it was for all ghosts or if Danny really was something special, he always had been more than meets the eye. However, the more times I circled him, the less I thought about all that, and the more I focused on possible ways to hide it. I flopped down on the chair Danny had occupied before. Tucker and Danny just stood there, staring blankly at me.

"You know, you guys are free to help me at any time," I shot out. Danny had the decency to look abashed, though thankfully he didn't blush. Tucker just continued to stand, took out his P.D.A, and started playing some game or other.

"Danny's the outcast, you're the spooky ghost loving bat girl, and I am the looks and the charm, you tell me who should be thinking up ideas," Tucker shrugged, I resisted the urge to slap him... again.

"If by 'looks and charms' you mean tecno-geek of extremely bad luck extending to, but not exclusive to, girls, then yes, you are," Danny laughed. Tucker pouted, never taking his eyes off the screen. I rolled my eyes and turned to Danny.

"Looks like it's just you and me," I pointed out to Danny, "Well, I guess first things first, we figure out what it is," I speculated. It was a basic concept, in order to find out how to get rid of something, you have to know as much about it as possible. Danny nodded, smiled, paused for a moment, and then frowned. I had seen that face on him plenty enough before to know what was coming next.

"Hmm?" he asked, and I needed no further elaboration to figure out he had completely forgotten what we were talking about.

"Your aura, Danny, stay with the program, we're trying to get rid of the creepy light surrounding you, remember?" I smiled at his cluelessness, it really was adorable... Wait! I thought what now!?

"Oh, right," Danny replied, fidgeting uncomfortably. "well, it's some sort of outward collection of energy that's attracted to me, I guess," he seemed confident in his answer, I just stared.

"Umm, what now?" Tucker asked, I couldn't have put it better myself. Danny went on trying to explain to us the basics off ghostly aura. From what I could tell, it seemed to be half outside energy collection, and half a byproduct using energy. At  
least, that's what I based my next suggestion on.

"So, it's energy... I suppose it's possible that the outer one is ambient energy in the environment that you're unconsciously attracting to yourself, and the bottom is a byproduct of energy that your body is using, I mean, if you think about it, that makes sense biologically if your thinking in living terms," I thought out loud.

"Sounds about right," Danny responded.

"Well, can you turn it off?" I shrugged as I asked, the question was barely worth a shot, but I had nothing else. He froze for a moment.

"I, I don't know. I mean, it's not like I've been a ghost for that long. I never tried," he informed me. I smiled, it wasn't confirmation, but I'd take it anyway.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Try it!" I encouraged. _Please work, please work, please work,_ I crossed my fingers. At first I was disappointed, thinking my assumption was completely wrong. Instead of dimming his aura actually became brighter and bigger! The light danced around him, twirling as if he were the center of his own small tornado. Then the light flared upward in a big burst. I wasn't very happy with this reaction, but I decided to wait it out. It payed off. As I watched, Danny's pure aura dimmed, and dimmed, and dimmed, and then there was a whoosh, like a candle being blown out, and it was gone. There was still a brightness to him, but nothing that could be detected in the light of day or passed off as a natural _human_ glow at night.

"You did it!" I announced, even Mr. I-don't-have-to-think Tucker seemed impressed at the change. Danny really did look completely and totally normal.

"T-thanks, S-Sam," Danny smiled at me. I smiled even wider, not only was the aura gone, but so was the echo in his voice! Then I frowned. Danny was swaying lightly on his feet and his eyes, though now thoroughly blue, were a bit fogged up.

"Danny, are you okay?" I asked worriedly, jumping off the chair in case he passed out or something... can ghosts pass out? He looked so unsteady that even Tucker subtly braced himself behind him.

"Umm... uh, ya, S-Sam, I'm, I'm fine," excuse me for not being convinced. Then, suddenly, something changed. Danny took a deep breath and squared his  
shoulders, sending me a smirk. "I am fine, Sam," and he marched out of the bathroom and over to my bed, "Now, don't we have some English homework we need to finish? Don't want to get Lancer pissed in class tomorrow..." he sent Tucker and I a grin, "or we can just play the new version of Doomed," he added. Tucker and I exchanged a look.

"Doomed," we said simultaneously, jumping over to either side of our dead best friend.

* * *

_**A/N: **I know, all that time and not my best chapter. Whatever, at least they're finally getting out of Sam's room. Can't wait to see how Danny handles , so here's my dilemma. Like I said at the top, I got hit with a rabid plot bunny for a completely new story, however, I don't think I'm going to post it, because, like I said, it's writing itself, and I honestly have no idea where it's going past where I've written. However, if you guys think I should post it, I will. Here are the details. It will be pretty angsty, and a bit Vlad centric, I think. His parents will be huge -'s, but surprisingly not to OoC. There is no guarantee I will update on a regular basis, or even finish it, and it will take time away from my two other stories (just look at the delay it caused in this! About two weeks I think!). I would appreciate it if you guys told me what you think in your reviews, and, as an extra gift if **Magicalghostgirl **and **Diana Lily **should choose to vote, I will take theirs into extra consideration. _

_**DP Trivia: **__In__the DP video game 'Doomed' what are the names of Tucker's, Danny's, and Sam's characters? In addition, how do you win the game, and what is your prize?_

_Okay, now don't forget to **Review**!_


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